


swear them to the sky

by skylights



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Angst, Dragons, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Religious Themes, Romance, god help, serious never again, the last time I write something this long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 16:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylights/pseuds/skylights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about choices. About murder. About grief. About anger and fear and hope, and all the things we end up doing because of each.</p><p>This is a story about push and pull. About dancing around each other, quartermaster to agent, cross-continent and undercover.</p><p>But above all, this is a story about spies with dragons.</p><p>(Or to be more succinct: British nationals keep dying overseas, interesting bets are being made, and some dragons think things would be a lot simpler if a certain double-oh agent would just get together with his Quartermaster already.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 00Q Big Bang 2013
> 
> Many, many thanks and adorations to:
> 
> The amazing [epithalamium](http://archiveofourown.org/users/epithalamium/pseuds/epithalamium) and thislostcastaway ([tumblr](http://thislostcastaway.tumblr.com/)/[AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thislostcastaway)) for the lovely artwork
> 
> Lisa, Danielle and Alexis for being _the_ most patient betas ever  <3
> 
> Major themes in this fic are borrowed from Naomi Novik's amazing Temeraire series, which everyone should go and read because _holy shit_ , dragons! Prior knowledge of anything from that AU is not required though :D

_ _

_I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls._   
**Job 30:29**

 

**part one**

Santorini is supposed to be lovely in July. Travel guides wax poetic about this, the locals insist on it in accented English to whoever will listen and Q, usually painfully wry in his pre-mission briefings, had voiced his dissatisfaction by making several disgruntled sounds over the assignment of this particular account to Bond. The post-it reminder for sunscreen Q had pinned to Bond’s Santorini operations kit had even come strongly worded, Bond needing to take a full few seconds to properly appreciate Q’s creative manhandling of the English language before the note went into the bin.

After all, what’s the use of sunscreen when it doesn’t even come with someone to apply it for him? Bond being Bond, had kindly extended the offer to Q, which had merely resulted in Q rolling his eyes and making disparaging remarks about Bond having better luck teaching the island fauna to do so instead.

A definite no to skin cancer prevention, then.

In retrospect, Bond thinks it’s hardly fair that he should shoulder any blame for this mission’s locale. It’s not even his fault that some criminals just prefer the Balkans over say, Balashov or even Kent, but there’s professionalism for you. Q’s lacklustre equivalent of an MI6-sanctioned fit of jealousy has at least not gotten in the way of Bond netting a considerable amount of explosives, firearms and dangerous weaponry. So sunscreen or not, Bond is probably still going to live long enough to get Q yet another tacky tourist souvenir that Q didn’t ask for nor, to quote Q himself, can even bloody well condone having because _someone_ used the company account to buy overpriced, devastatingly ugly, local baubles again.

But back to how Santorini is supposed to be lovely.

Bond stands atop the flat roof of his suite, drenched from head to toe in brilliant sunlight with the Aegean sea to his back and vehemently thinks that while yes, the view is indeed quite pleasant and Santorini is certainly a very charming island to holiday on, it seems that most of his sources have failed to mention the absolutely blistering heat that comes with summertime here. After three full days of temperatures hovering at the 33ºc mark, Bond is honestly reconsidering his distaste for mid-winter operations.

“If you’re trying to work on your smouldering look, there’s probably a less literal way of doing it.” Niall yawns and stretches, luxuriating in the shade while Bond moves out of the sun to go sit by where Niall is, now that the latter is stirring awake. “And before you tell me how much you hate Santorini again, I’ll have you know that I’m fully capable of going back to sleep at a moment’s notice.”

“You’re just the pinnacle of companionship, aren’t you?” Bond adjusts his aviators so that they perch a little more firmly on the bridge of his nose, before turning towards where Niall is sprawled. “Remind me again why I keep bringing you with me?”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe the simple fact that you’d be dead a few dozen times over if I wasn’t here to save your sorry arse?” Another yawn and Niall slits his eyes as he squints at the sky, grumbling under his breath about the brightness. It’s going to be midday soon, the sun climbing higher still and pushing temperatures up to truly unbearable highs. “But now that you mention it, I probably should have sat out on this one.” A few more dark complaints about the temperature and Niall sighs, rolling his shoulders a few times to lessen the post-sleep stiffness. “This bloody heat is getting ridiculous. Tell me you’ve got enough information for us to leave within the week?”

“By tomorrow, if it all goes to plan..”

The next time Bond cares to looks over, Niall is already resettling, eyes shut firmly against the light. “Oh, good,” he mutters. “When does it _never_ go to plan?”

 

* * *

 

The heat makes Niall lethargic and even more sarcastic than usual during the day, so Bond leaves him lying in the shade to sleep the daytime hours off, Bond left to his own devices for hours on end. The first three days had been recon, of course, or whatever recon that Bond can do in this frustrating maze of a town, but by day four, Bond is already well and thoroughly sick of prowling around Fira in the dry, sea-scented heat, playing pretend-tourist while he tries to make sense of the town’s seemingly random layout. Santorini’s capital is a mess of buildings stacked precariously along the cliff edges and as if moving on the narrow, cobblestoned walkways isn’t already hard enough to do when they’re filled with throngs of summertime tourists, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship just has to dock this morning, all 2000 passengers spilling out onto the island like a plague.

By lunchtime, there are cameras and handheld video recorders being thrust in all directions possible. Crowds, absolute throngs of them, lounge about on every available street corner while others tramp their noisy way up to Firostefani and then on to Oia before heading back down to descend on Fira, clustering around where the docks are. Santorini heaves under this new crush of humanity, overcrowded in the heat, and it isn’t long before Bond resigns himself to just absently wandering the streets, occasionally tracing and retracing potential bolt-paths in case the need for them should arise. Not that he’d be able to do any bolting of sorts with the streets as crammed as they are now, but it’s still rather comforting to have information like this on hand.

When Bond finally emerges from the bowels of downtown Fira, it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise when he finds himself in possession of not only a suitably ugly knick-knack for Q to add to his unintentional collection, but also the beginnings of what promises to be an excellent migraine, the latter being courtesy of loud commercialised tourism and the harsh glare of sunlight reflecting off the white-wash that the townspeople are so fond of using here.

“Can I claim medical expenses for injuries sustained before making contact with the mark?” Bond groans dramatically into his mobile as he watches the street from a first floor cafe. The iced coffee in front of him is slowly turning undrinkable in the afternoon heat, leaking condensation into a small puddle on the table. “Maybe have someone fly over and make sure these aren’t actually symptoms of a brain tumour?”

“God, if only we’d be so lucky,” Q says drily in return. “If you have a headache, Bond, perhaps you should just man up and buy yourself some aspirin instead of spreading your misery.”

“It’s no fun if I’m in pain all by myself.” Leaning back into his chair, Bond reaches out to toy with the disturbingly unbecoming paperweight he had bought off the street just before coming up here. The ceramic Athena owl has a startled expression that borders on frightening and Bond is sure Q would appreciate its addition to his ever-growing collection of travel souvenirs from Bond. “Besides,” Bond drawls, setting the owl back onto the table again. “You can’t be that presumptuous as to assume I’m only calling to whine about my bad day, are you?”

A sigh floats through from Q’s end of the line. “You have five seconds to get to the real reason behind your call before I hang up on you.”

“So you mean I need a reason every time I call you? Cruel, Q. That’s just _cruel_ , even coming from you.”

“Five,” begins Q warningly and Bond relents, launching smoothly into a concise list of reasons why MI6 should have someone start drafting a letter of apology to the Greek government for when Bond is done in Santorini. The problem of difficult layouts and ridiculous architecture is already one thing in itself, but to have that along with the added annoyance of nosy tourists crawling all over the hit location is another one altogether. Bond knows he’s been specifically told _not_ to plan anything that will end in the same kind of fiasco that Tianjin had turned out to be in March, but given the reasons he had just listed to Q, Bond thinks M just might forgive him for adding a Greek account to the Chinese stack over at Finances. Maybe. Probably.

“So what you’re telling me–,” Q says slowly, “–is you anticipate things going pear-shaped on your end and you want me to be the bearer of bad news to M?”

“Well that’s a rather unkind way to put it, but–“

“No.”

“It’s not like I have a _choice_ , Q.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” The sentence is curt, the tightness of Q’s public school accent making the syllables glass hard. “When there’s a will, there’s always a way. You just want to give everyone at Finances a collective heart attack again, don’t you?” There’s a few furious sounding clicks and keyboard taps coming over the line, Bond narrowing his eyes a little at whatever destruction Q is orchestrating half a continent away. “We’re up to our ears in debt here and I swear, if M goes after my department budget because you decided to wreck a few tourist stands and a priceless clock tower or two, I’m going to have MI5 outfit you instead of my branch.”

“You wouldn’t,” Bond breathes, mock-scandalised even as he’s jarred out of contemplating his coffee and its ratio of actual caffeine to melted ice. “Q, I know we have our differences, but that’s going a bit too bloody far now, isn’t it?”

“Desperate times, double-oh seven. Desperate times. In any case, I’ve just sent you some extended floor plans for the Aigialos so please do familiarise yourself with them if you haven’t already. The Tramountana villa where Aleksander will be is up in the top north section of the hotel complex so I don’t really care how creative your exit strategy will be in the event of complications, as long as you don’t wreck too much havoc in the surrounding areas.”

“I like how you say complications when you actually mean me facing down certain death,” comes the dry reply. A tentative sip at his coffee has Bond knowing that it tastes more foul than he had calculated it to be, Bond only swallowing his last mouthful down through sheer force of will and wanting to not look like a complete boor by spitting it back out. “Are we now at the part where you tell me MI6 would appreciate minimal civilian involvement and possible trauma?”

“Personally, I’ve found the practice to be quite redundant since you do have a flair for the dramatic.”

“Ah, so you _have_ been paying attention.”

“If I don’t pay attention, no one will, and then we’ll have to waste resources sending in a retrieval team to bag your body.”

“Funny, Niall said something along those lines to me just earlier this morning.” Bond pushes the offending glass of watered down coffee far, far away from him and picks the owl up again. “He says hi to Marie, by the way. Says he wishes she was here because I’m apparently not good enough company.”

“Oh?” The earlier traces of exasperation in Q’s voice let up a little, Bond letting the corners of his lips turn up a fraction in the barest hint of a smile as he hears the softened tone. “Noted, I’ll pass that on and be sure to emphasise on you being bad to live with. She’s got a whole paragraph of things she wants to tell him too, so you’d best let him know that he’s probably got a longish voicemail coming his way soon.”

“He’ll appreciate it, that lazy brute. Do you know what he’s been doing since we got here? Absolutely nothing.”

Q hums noncommittally. “I’d draw your attention to certain parallels between you and him, but I think you already know them. Anyways, unlike certain people who get to spend their afternoons drinking coffee in the sun and wasting company call credit, I have some actual work to do.”

“I’ll remember that comment while dodging bullets in the name of Queen and country, ta.”

“Hanging up now, Bond. Goodbye.”

“No, I hate it when you hang up first, darling,” Bond purrs and Q just sighs the sigh of the long-suffering in response before the line goes dead.

 

* * *

 

“That–” Niall says when Bond shows him the paperweight, “–is possibly the most hideous thing I’ve seen you spend actual money on.”

“It’s perfect, isn’t it?” Bond is grinning broadly, allowing himself this one small indulgence as he turns the owl over in his hands. Now that he’s actually looking at it, the owl really does seem to possess a sort of ugliness that’s almost…endearing, in a way. With bulging eyes far too big for its tiny head and splashes of paint (Bond guesses that in an ideal world, these are supposed to be feathers) streaking down the sides of its misshapen ceramic body, it feels like it’ll fit in right away with the array of strange trinkets that Bond has been bringing back lately to terrorise Q’s workspace with.

“It’s absolutely fucking terrifying, more like.” In the falling dark, Niall has to come a little closer to the light that’s leaking out from the doorway to Bond’s suite, angling his head to have a proper look at Bond’s newest acquisition. “You might want to exorcise it before giving it away.”

Bond laughs and leaves the owl on top of his luggage before walking out to join Niall in the evening cool, Niall having drawn away from where he had been watching Bond to go settle at the edge of the wide balcony instead, staring out at the sea. Sunsets come slowly here, but it always seems to get dark quicker than Bond expects and along the cliffs, Fira is already lit up for the night.

“You talked to him today, didn’t you?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t play coy,” Niall grunts. “You had that face on you when you came back, so there’s no use denying it now.”

For a brief moment, Bond thinks about objecting, but the look that Niall is sporting already has Bond knowing it’ll be a lost cause, should he even try.

“What’s it to you if I did talk to him?”

“Marie and I have a running bet about the both of you getting together, in case you didn’t know already.” Bond turns wearily to Niall at mention of this and Niall just schools his features into a loose approximation of innocence. “I’ve got a fairly big pool riding on eight months to a year, but Marie’s a lot more optimistic. Four to six months, she thinks.”

“And I suppose the next thing you’re going to tell me is that you’ve got M placing his bets as well? Some of Q’s branch managers, maybe?”

“We did consider opening it up a little–“ Niall admits lightly, “–but then that’d mean too much potential manipulation from third parties. I may like Marie’s company, but I’ll have you know, I like winning more.”

“Potential manipulation from third–…” There’s disbelief in Bond’s tone, Bond shaking his head as he trails off. “And I’d be correct to assume that the both of you wretches aren’t considered as manipulative third parties?”

Niall just looks pointedly out towards the horizon in response, refusing to even grace Bond with a direct answer for that.

“I hate you,” Bond finally says with immense feeling and Niall laughs.

 

* * *

 

“Fuck,” Bond swears under his breath as an ornamental mirror next to him shatters in an impressive shower of shards, destroyed under rapid, if slightly inaccurate gunfire. “ _Fuck_.”

The sudden flare of a shot so close to him jars Bond’s night vision a little and Bond curses as he blinks furiously in the dark, ducking through the arch into the living room so he can overturn a conveniently placed coffee table for cover. It’s pitch dark in the villa and Bond can only spare half a second to bless the fact that Q has somehow managed to worm his way into the local power provider’s system, cutting off the lights to plunge this part of the island into a temporary darkness.

In the absence of man-made light, the moon outside seems impossibly close.

“Bond, get the hell out of there,” urges Q in Bond’s ear just as gunfire starts to erupt again, Bond hunkering down against the wood as it takes the brunt of the attack.

“You think I’m not trying?” Bond hisses. “How about you try dodging bullets in the dark?” There’s a half snarl of annoyance curling from behind Bond’s grit teeth, cuts opening up on his palms as he presses against the places where wood has shattered and prepares to shove the table forwards as a temporary diversion. “Keep the lights out, Q, I’m going to make a run for Niall in a minute.”

“Might want to make that half a minute,” comes Niall’s voice over the system, the wind making his words sound much too far away to be anything of a comfort. “30 seconds and counting, James.”

“Oh, now that’s just _brilliant_.”

More gunfire staccatos overhead and in a split second decision, Bond kicks the table towards the general direction of where he hopes one of the bodyguards is standing. A burly looking shadow goes down with a yell.

“Twenty five,” warns Niall’s in Bond’s ear as Bond takes advantage of the temporary confusion and sprints out of the living room, running towards the balcony. Bullets are ricocheting off the walls just as Bond breaks into the open, the tattered remands of his suit jacket flapping in the warm night air. “Twenty.”

Bond can’t hear the rest of it though, not over the sound of gunfire and his own adrenaline pumping in his ears as he runs towards the furthest edge of the balcony. With little effort, he clambers up onto the low, waist-high wall that separates the villa from the cliff’s edge and the sea crashing onto the rocks below, the empty air like a sudden void beneath the back half of Bond’s shoes when he stands to his feet.

“I hope you bloody well know what you’re doing,” Q’s voice cuts in abruptly, the sound of each word clipped and tight with stress. Perhaps Bond should be flattered that Q gets like this sometimes, mostly whenever Bond does anything particularly life endangering.

“You’re one to comment when you told me to get creative with my exist strategy. Look, Q! No clock towers or tourists!”

In the midst of Bond’s animated retort, the bodyguards have come to a sudden standstill in front of Bond, guns still trained on him.

“ _Stamatí̱ste!_ ” one of the guards barks and even if Bond doesn’t know the language, the intent is obvious enough.

If Bond falls, the documents fall with him.

“Fifteen.”

“In a bit of a dilemma now, aren’t we?” Bond says with a grin, breathing hard even as he spreads his bloodied hands in front of him, a poor mimicry of surrender. “Good thing it’s a nice night out this evening. A standoff like this would be uncomfortable in the rain.”

“Thirteen.”

It’s a full moon tonight, hanging low in the sky and Bond bides his time in its barely-enough light, counting the number of bodyguards who eventually emerge from the villa. Two already on the balcony, two more limping out. Four still standing out of the original six, which isn’t too bad at all, given the three minutes or so that Bond had.

“You cannot jump,” one of the guards points out reasonably when they have Bond surrounded and Bond still hasn’t made a move to come down from his perch on the wall. “There is no where to run.”

“Five,” says Niall.

The sea sounds loud from where Bond is standing and if Bond would care to look, waves are crashing onto the rocks down below, sea spray having done nothing to blunt their sharpened edges. From the echo alone, it sounds like a long, painful way to the bottom.

All it’ll take is a misplaced breath of wind, a miscalculated step to send Bond off the edge and onto the rocks, sliding into the water.

Maybe it’ll even take a bullet to the chest, if it’s that sort of night.

Bond really, really hopes it’s not that sort of night.

“Four.”

“Get _down_ , you madman,” one of the guards yells, English coloured faintly with a rolling Greek accent. “Get _down_.”

“Three.”

Maybe it’s the word _madman_ that finally does it, or maybe like Q said, Bond is just overly fond of dramatics when he can get away with them, but under the light of the Thiran moon, Bond just grins as wide as he can and spreads his arms before leaning back into the open air– (“Two.”) – and letting gravity take care of the rest.

“One.”

“Mother _fucker_ ,” shouts one of the guards just before falling makes it too hard to hear anything beyond the rush of wind in Bond’s ears and then–

Niall grunts as Bond twists his body just in time to land a little off mark, hands scrambling for purchase against smooth scales before Niall banks a little to the right and Bond can finally get hold of one of the saddle straps, looping the tough leather around his wrists for the time being.

“You just had to stop to see the scenery, didn’t you? Couldn’t have just got in, shot the bastard, take the documents and get out like any normal agent?” Niall grumbles as Bond tries to catch his breath, leaning forwards against the familiar expanse of Niall’s neck.

“Shut up and fly.”

They’re hugging the coastline by now, low enough for sea spray to dampen the heels of Bond’s shoes and far above head, the shouts have turned from loud cursing to a single word, surprise and anger making voices carry far into the night.

“ _Dráko̱n!_ ” Bond hears on the wind even as Niall carries them away from Santorini, making for the mainland.

“ _Dráko̱n!_ ”

Dragon.

 

* * *

 

 **dragon**  
 _drag.on / drægən_  
noun

1\. sentient animal of reptilian origin, order Draconia, generally having characteristics such as a moderately elongate body, tapered tail and hardened scales

Also see: _draco archaeopterophis_

* * *

 

 

__

 

* * *

 

**interlude**

The strange thing is, Bond had never really wanted a dragon.

But before that:

While working at Vickers had made Andrew Bond a nice, respectable sum of money, it was the side dealings he did on his position-appropriate travels around the continent that made him truly rich. Andrew’s position as company rep had him traipsing in and out of Europe on an almost weekly basis, wining and dining some clients in Paris one day, charming others in Berlin the next.

An easy life, if you will. Safe and dull and devoid of any sort of excitement whatsoever, and if one day Andrew suddenly started bringing home more than signed contracts or the promise of new business, well… no one would have even suspected a thing.

Of course, things were simpler back then, people more easy to please if you had the right resources. Money greased hands, the right names made eyes look the other way, and if anyone ever discovered something that shouldn’t be stashed safely away in crates of company samples, no one ever said. Bond always knew to give whatever cases he found in the spare room a wide berth when Andrew brought those back, only watching curiously from the top of the stairs whenever eager-looking men and women came to collect said cases from his father during the night.

One of Bond’s earliest memories of Skyfall is Andrew taking his hand to press against the warmth of a swaddled Winchester egg waiting in the foyer, Bond curling his then-chubby fingers around the curve.

 

 

 

“Dragon?” Bond had asked then, looking up curiously at his father, and the knowing smile on Andrew’s face had been all the answer that Bond needed.

It wasn’t like Andrew couldn’t get a dragonet for his son if Bond had been so inclined towards such a companion. Smuggling dragon eggs past red tape meant many people owed Andrew a favour or two, but as a child, Bond was more interested in climbing trees and looking for rabbits on the moorlands, not sitting down to train a hatchling. A dog might have been welcome, maybe, but a dragon?

Far too many responsibilities, far too much trouble. Bond didn’t want a dragon and no cajoling from Andrew was going to change that.

At this point though, it goes without saying that life, in its infinite ability to disregard anyone’s personal feelings on important events, had decided otherwise for Bond.

Bond was barely six the night of the intended pick-up. Though scheduled for the week before, bad weather meant the egg had been sitting in Skyfall for a good eight days and counting, shell hardening to a point where even Andrew was starting to get increasingly restless, not daring to move the egg unless he absolutely had to. This egg, a particularly adventurous attempt to breed a Winchester against a Chinese Jade, had reached a final bidding price of close to £300,000 and if it hatched before its buyer arrived, there was no telling whether Andrew would be stuck with a disgustingly expensive racing breed he had no interest in keeping or a 15% commission .

Not that either option was unattractive at that time mind you, but pocketing $45,000 was still considerably easier than housing a dragonet, especially if said dragonet decided it didn’t like the looks of its potential Rider.

Come 2am and with still no sign of the buyer, Bond was already falling asleep at his usual post by the top of the stairs, head resting on drawn-up knees as he waited. Andrew knew his son liked to watch the transactions happen, all hush-hush and reminiscent of some B-grade spy movie where Andrew played the almost-villain, but as long as Bond kept quiet and stayed on the stairs, Andrew didn’t really mind being watched. It made the longer nights feel a little more bearable after all, and the intent look of delight on his son’s face was more than worth the unplanned sleep-ins the next morning.

Bond wouldn’t have known it that night, having fallen asleep when it happened, but based on Niall’s own patchy retelling, it was the warmth of the fireplace that did the trick, egg starting to crack the moment Andrew went to let the client in from the rain.

The rest, as they say, is history.

 

* * *

 

“Did you actually try to bite him the first time you met?”

“Of course I did, he wouldn’t wake up otherwise.”

Across the courtyard, Marie’s excited tones carry easily and Bond only sighs, Q doing the same, though his comes with an extended eye-roll to accompany it. At less than three years old, Marie is still as excitable as they come, her tiny size not impeding her in any conceivable way. Why a dragon as collected as Niall is still putting up with her incessant questioning and capering is anyone’s guess, but Q finds it endearing all the same, if a bit unexpected.

“She’ll get tired of hearing origin stories over and over again, one day,” Bond says conversationally as they watch the two dragons lying together in the sun, Niall’s deeper voice a low counterpoint to Marie’s. Niall has gotten to the part where Bond’s father apparently goes for his shotgun, terrified that a hatchling would somehow mistake his son for a first meal. “But then again, that’s almost as likely as Niall getting tired of telling them.”

“He didn’t actually bite you, did he? Wouldn’t blame him for trying though.”

“Your kind sentiments towards my younger self have been noted, thanks. And Niall only wishes that he did, the overdramatic beast. It’s not like he can get away with it now anyways.”

Santorini has left Bond with a temporary aversion to bright sunlight, so they sit in the shade instead, not that London’s watery excuse is anywhere close to what Bond had come home from. Documents safely handed over in the hours before, Bond and Niall have retreated to the courtyard to let Marie say her hellos, even if Niall had given Bond a rather knowing look once Q emerged as well.

Is it even possible for dragons to look smug?

The owl paperweight sits comfortably in the space between Bond and Q, nestled against empty take-away boxes and paper sandwich bags. Q had taken one look at the ceramic monstrosity before deciding that if he ignored it, the bad thing would eventually go away, Q going as far as to tell Bond this much when Bond had offered it up like some strange peace offering.

“I think it has a certain charm to it, don’t you?” Bond volunteers after they’ve been watching their respective dragons for a while, though the momentary lapse of silence had in no way been uncomfortable. He’s picked up the owl to illustrate his point and Q can only grimace a little, deftly plucking the paperweight from Bond’s palm.

“It’s very…emotive,” says Q flatly. “I think if I squint a little, I might get what the artist was trying to convey.”

“Deep-set childhood trauma?”

“I was going more for pretentious modern art, but now that you mention it, that angle fits right too. Marie likes it enough in any case, so that’s something, even if I’m just putting that down to her being too young to know good art from the bad.”

Q bounces the owl in his palm a few times before lifting his head to look back at the dragon in question, Marie currently making a nuisance of herself by climbing all over Niall.

“Been too busy teaching her the finer points of micro-engineering to give her art appreciation classes?”

The sudden laughter from Q makes Bond grin in return, Q setting the owl carefully back down onto its temporary seat between them before he leans back on his palms.

“Been too busy picking up after her messes, more like. Sometimes, I’m not even sure if I’m cursed or blessed that she’s the size that she is.”

A runt for her breed, Marie had been part of an exchange from the Directorate-General for External Security in France, a sort of apology slash payment for the cock-up at Portsmouth that had a French operative accidentally costing the SIS five perfectly hatchable eggs. The SIS had been livid beyond belief when Marie had hatched a small, sickly little thing, but in a take it or leave it situation thanks to France’s bad breeding year, they had still settled or her in the end.

Marie has climbed easily onto Niall’s back by now, the smaller fledging a tight, but comfortable fit between Niall’s wings. From this distance, the cheerful red colouring of her Plein-Vite heritage makes her look not unlike a contented barnacle, or a misplaced Christmas ornament atop Niall’s more sombre, storm grey scales.

“At least you’re not getting cheated out of your life savings to rent living space for her,” Bond counters easily. Niall himself isn’t oversized by any standards, but standing at a good head and a half taller than Bond, it’s still a challenge to house him without renting out an entire apartment floor. Bond just considers himself lucky that killing people for the collective good of the country pays considerably well.

“Five more minutes and we’re leaving,” Bond calls towards where Niall and Marie have just started play-fighting in the sun and Marie pauses in her assault to raise her head in Bond’s direction, baring her teeth in mock retaliation which just leads to Niall barrelling into her to knock her easily off her feet. “Wrap it up, the two of you. I need to sleep.”

“You’ll both be back tomorrow?” Having righted herself immediately after hitting the ground with a loud thump and causing Q’s yes to widen in abject worry, Marie has sprung back up on her own four legs to bound up to Q and Bond, turning a critical eye to the latter.

“I haven’t even heard about Santorini yet,” she grumbles. “It’s hot there, isn’t it? Did you manage to fly around the island? Did you kill anyone? Did _Niall_ kill anyone?”

“Marie,” warns Q without too much feeling and Marie huffs, the sound quickly turning into a loud squeak of indignation when Niall gently nudges the tinier dragon out of the way with a foreleg so he can add his part into the conversation as well.

“The full debrief is tomorrow so we’ll have to be back anyways,” Niall rumbles calmly. “And then maybe you’ll find out just how many people we killed this time around.”

Bond throws Niall a half exasperated, half disapproving look which thankfully goes clear over Marie’s head, Marie now more preoccupied with capering excitedly in front of Q, clearly over the moon at the promise of getting access to the more gory mission details.

“Bond, I swear, if your dragon keeps feeding Marie with tidbits like that…”

Hands lifted in mock surrender, Bond shrugs. “Niall’s _right there_ if you want to call him out on it. For once, this isn’t my fault.”

“He’s your dragon, of course it’s your fault.”

By now, Q has somehow gotten Marie to calm down a little and she thrusts her head at Q, obviously asking for some sort of incentive to keep still. Q, indulgent as he is with her, runs a fond hand across her snout, eventually getting a lapful of dragon for all his trouble.

“Go on then,” Q says at length, one hand resting against the top of Marie’s head. “Go back, get some sleep and come back to terrorise me in the morning.”

Niall has taken to nudging at Bond’s chest with his nose, clearly trying to get his Rider onto his feet so they can go home for the rest of the day. They hadn’t even meant to stop at HQ for more than fifteen minutes this afternoon, Bond fully intending to only drop the relevant things off and let Marie climb all over Niall for a while before going back to fall into bed for the next two days. Nonetheless, it’s been one hour and a full lunch since they’ve landed, and they’re both still nowhere near anything that mildly resembles sleep.

It’s not something Bond regrets though, even if he’d rather face down the business end of a gun than admit that.

“I’ll schedule in the terrorising between the debrief and the post-ops physical so be a dear and keep that slot in your day empty for me, will you?”

“Ha bloody ha. There’s a root canal operation I’ve been putting off for a while now and I think I’ve finally found the perfect time to schedule it.”

“I can be there to hold your hand if you need me to.”

Q groans and waves Bond off, clearly at a loss for words. “Go _home_ , Bond, I think the exhaustion is getting to you.”

At this, Bond does finally get to his feet, smirking as he brushes sandwich crumbs off his trousers. Q had been gracious enough to be waiting with food when Bond finally extracted himself from Mallory’s office and even if it had been from the sad excuse that the SIS passed off as a cafeteria, food was still food all the same.

“Thanks for lunch, by the way.”

“I’d hardly call cafeteria sandwiches and a boxed salad lunch, but you’re welcome. Lucky for Niall and Marie, it’s actually pretty hard to screw up meat.”

“I think Niall might want to differ on that after Dalvík, but that’s probably a story for when we’re not in danger of keeling over.”

Bond picks up Niall’s saddle from where he had left it next to the bench and Niall obligingly lowers himself to the ground, lifting his wings without needing to be told so that Bond can get the straps in place for the short flight back.

“Okay?” prompts Bond out of habit even though they’ve been at this for years and Q knows Bond could probably do the whole procedure blindfolded, one hand behind his back. Niall rears up on his hind legs, wings outstretched before falling gracefully back onto the ground again, shaking his shoulders so that the rigging settles comfortably.

“Okay. Now get on, you’re not the only one that’s going to keel over soon. Dalvík was fish, by the way, and I’d actually prefer it if we don’t bring up that one week ever again.”

With a snort to accentuate his feelings on seafood, Niall crouches low to the flagstones so that Bond can pull himself up into the saddle.

“No fish stories tomorrow, then.” Q gives Niall a friendly goodbye pat on the side while Marie goes up to bump noses with him, Bond nodding at Q from where he’s seated. “I’ll have someone prep the new BIRD paperwork for the both of you when you come in, by the way. You know how anal they’re being these days with cross-border identification and the like.”

“God, I don’t suppose I can take your place at that root canal thing tomorrow?” A sigh and Bond slips his aviators on, giving Niall a light tap on one shoulder blade to let the dragon know that they’re good to go.

“A little paperwork never hurt anyone.”

“That’s what they all say,” Bond says darkly in parting and Niall tenses under him for one brief moment before lifting them into the air with one downward push of his wings, Bond glancing down in time to see Q going back to the bench to pocket the owl. Niall bears them out of the SIS courtyard then, heading for Chelsea, and Bond lets himself grin.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

“You’re late,” Q says the moment Bond walks into his branch office unannounced, Marie twisting a curious head over her shoulder to blink at the agent in question. “Care to tell us which one of you overslept this time?”

“Is Niall–“ Marie cuts in hopefully before Bond can make any excuses for his waltzing in at 11:32 in the morning and Bond cocks his head towards the door he just came through.

“Out in the courtyard, go right ahead. He’s just waiting for the post-ops physical.”

The younger dragon doesn’t exactly bolt outside, but she does come rather close to it, Q needing to tamp down on the urge to throw his hands up in frustration when the end of her tail catches a table leg and almost sends two monitors crashing to the floor.

“She’s not half as bad as Niall was at her age, if that’s any comfort,” offers Bond helpfully in lieu of the almost-destruction of expensive technological equipment, Q going to rearrange the monitors so that they’re not in danger of toppling off the table. Quietly, Bond notes that the owl he had painstakingly brought back from Santorini has found a place on Q’s own workstation.

“You had twenty acres in the Scottish highlands. I have an underground lab that just slightly bigger than a swimming pool.” A sigh and Q pulls some wiring back into place, Bond looking up from where he had been contemplating the paperweight. “Half as bad in a fraction of the space still means I’m on the losing end, aren’t I?”

“I could make an argument for this being closer to one of the Olympic-sized pools rather than the regular ones, but…”

Q huffs out a laugh and Bond knows that for all of Q’s comments about Marie being a nuisance to have around delicate equipment, there’s no real venom behind the words. As always, Q straightens Marie’s mess with the practiced motions of someone who has been doing it on a daily basis for the past two years or so, Bond helping to shift the table back into its rightful place where it’ll hopefully stay for the next few hours.

“In any case…” Q says slowly as he makes his way towards the main worktable with tablet in hand. He carefully picks through the field equipment both Niall and Bond had somehow managed to bring back intact the day before. “How did the mic patches go for clarity?”

Bond follows Q to go lean against the table’s edge, arms folded and glancing over at Q so he can watch Q make thoughtful noises over field-tested tech.

“Some interference in higher wind speeds as expected, but altitude-wise, it seems to be doing just fine. Niall likes them, so I suppose that’s enough to go on.”

“No discomfort during flight?”

“Knowing Niall, I would get an earful about it if it so much as itched, so no. Long-term wear seems feasible too, since he had it on for about eight hours, give or take.”

A pleased nod from Q and the mic patch goes back into its casing, Q scrawling something onto his tablet with the stylus . What had initially began as a pet project that allowed him to talk to Marie during her solo flights has now turned into a fully-fledged, MI6 funded affair, the current mic models on the market too uncomfortable for long flights and too unreliable in higher wind speeds. Not that MI6 has too many operatives cum Riders in the system, but under the threat of insufficient funding and with the knowledge that dragonic technology is still pretty much stuck in the 90s, Q has learnt to be quite persuasive, to say the least. Mallory’s support for anything that’ll contribute to both operatives and dragons being kept alive for a little while longer hadn’t gone unappreciated too, especially when it was his sign-off on the budget approval forms that really mattered in the long run.

“Any inroads on the touch screens, by the way?”

At this, Q’s head snaps up from where he had been quickly sketching a new upgrade to the patches, throat vibration sensors spread out over a wider area instead of its current concentration around the edges. There’s a suspicion on Q’s face for a moment before it dissolves into something that looks an awful lot like resignation.

“Do I even have to ask who told you about that?” he asks tiredly in return. There’s an insufferably smug look on Bond’s face by now and Q just knows that the moment he has a working prototype up and running, he’ll end up having to make an extra one to keep Bond from harassing him about it.

Bloody dragons and their inability to keep secrets to themselves.

“You’re just making it so you can play online Scrabble with her, aren’t you?” prods Bond when Q seems quite intent on making faces at his screen and sketching with a rather annoyed air instead of voluntarily offering up information about his newest pet project.

“If you knew how many screens she broke while trying to use them during the first few months, you might want to rethink that statement.”

Like how two tonne beasts and delicate technology aren’t meant to be, claws and touch screens just simply don’t go too well together. Q had lost three monitors and bought five new tablets within the space of two weeks before it started to make more sense for him to fix the problem instead of cleaning up after it.

Of course, the look on Marie’s face when Q broke the idea to her had been more than worth all the damages she had incurred, but that’s a bit of a given.

“You know, I won’t be surprised if she and Niall have been comparing notes on effective destruction methods.”

“Please spare me the horror, Bond.”

“Just imagine it,” Bond continues on a gleeful note now that he’s got a potential lure in sight and Q’s efficiency means that they’re pretty much done with tech debriefing for the time being. “The things that the both of them could learn from each other.”

“You mean the things your corrupt dragon could teach mine?” Q has laid his tablet aside to start packing the used equipment away, Bond easily sliding over whatever he can on his end of the table towards Q. “Don’t think for one second that I don’t know who Marie learnt those evasive dives from.”

“I’ve heard that MI4 have some really good flyers in their retinue,” says Bond, suddenly the poster child for innocence.

“Evasive diving, Bond. In the middle of _London_.” The last remaining earwig goes into the discard box with a little more force than it probably deserves. “Between _buildings_.”

“We’ll make a stunt flyer out of her yet,” Bond is starting to say, but the unamused look on Q’s face has Bond smoothly following that up with a more sedate “But in the meantime, I’ll have Niall ease up on sharing flight techniques.”

“That would be appreciated, thank you.” Equipment all packed away, Q tags the boxes neatly and heaves one of them off the table to bring back to his own workstation, the other left behind for the disposal team to get rid of.

“Don’t you have a debriefing with Mallory to attend?” he asks when he notices Bond still hanging around.

“Kicking me out already?”

“More like making sure your tardiness doesn’t end up with Mallory being in a bad mood for the rest of the day,” scoffs Q. “There’s a project I need to get his approval on later, so I’d really appreciate it if I got it signed without the added glaring.”

“You’re going to end up blaming me if you don’t get that approval, aren’t you?”

Q graces Bond with a sarcasm-laced smile when he sits down at his table, tablet already in front of him for more design tweaking.

“It’s almost noon, Bond, I’d run the rest of the way to the admin wing if I were you.”

 

* * *

 

“Sir.”

Sparing Bond only the briefest of glances, Mallory waves Bond into the office before turning back to his work, typing a few more lines on his laptop before putting it to sleep. Q’s insistence that MI6 do away with most, if not all forms of actual paper-based documentation had taken a while to implement, but now that Mallory’s desk is neater than Bond can remember the old M’s ever being, Bond supposes that it had been worth the wait.

Today, there’s only the usual debriefing sign-off documents and beneath that, a copy of The Telegraph on Mallory’s desk.

“And how was Santorini, double-oh seven?”

“Hot.” Bond taps a finger against the arm of the chair he’s sitting in, considering. “Swarming with tourists,” he adds after a beat.

“It’s good you weren’t there for a holiday, then.”

“My thoughts exactly, sir.”

The words **RAMPAGE** and **DRAGON** peek out in bolded font from under the debriefing documents, disappearing altogether when Mallory pulls the paper off the table to slot into one of his desk drawers instead. Bond hasn’t seen the news since he got back last evening and though he’s not one to read the papers from cover to cover, it seems like today will be one of those rare days he’ll have to pick a physical copy up, if only to show it to Niall later on.

“I trust that you’ve already reported back to Q regarding equipment and the like?”

“Yes sir.”

“Any problems with that area? You and Niall?”

“Not that I can recall, no. The prototype mic patches we used during this operation were of excellent quality though.”

They go through the usual post-operation drivel after that, Bond signing his name with a flourish on all the dotted lines to confirm all facts, details and occurrences are indeed accurate. Mallory has the BIRD forms underneath the standard MI6 ones as well and the brief look of distaste on Mallory’s face at them when he hands them over is evidence enough of his views on the British Inspectorate for the Regulation of Dragons’ current stance on dragon identification.

While it’s not a secret that Mallory takes a side-interest in dragon affairs, what _is_ rarely talked about is the fact that Mallory had lost his own Greyling to the IRA in the 70s. Mallory doesn’t wear his grief on his arm the way other Riders do, but anyone who knows where to look will still see the tightness around his eyes, a certain stiffness in his shoulders when he absolutely has to talk to Niall or Marie, or any of few other dragons in MI6’s retainer. Thirty years now and though there had been whispers in the inner circles of the department about why a Rider had managed to obtain double-oh status, Bond has since made it a point to leave no cause for doubt over the real reason for his or Niall’s appointment.

“Niall sends his regards,” Bond says, the way he always does when he stands to leave and Mallory just nods his acknowledgement, clipping the forms back together.

 

* * *

 

**British Rider Murdered in Finnish Capital**

HELSINKI, Finland–  
A British citizen and Rider, David Singh, was stabbed to death in the Finnish capital of Helsinki late last evening.

Finnish law enforcement received distress calls at approximately 6:30pm local time from onlookers who reported the death, these being followed up by further calls for assistance due to Singh’s dragon, a nine-year-old male Chasseur-Vocifere, exhibiting violent behaviour once Singh was confirmed dead.

Singh’s dragon was put down at the scene by Finnish Dragon Control officers in the interest of public safety and the seven onlookers injured in its rampage have since been hospitalised with non-fatal wounds.

While initial investigations have not implicated anyone in Singh’s murder, Detective Chief Inspector Henri Koski has reassured– (pg 3 for full report)

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

“Did you see this?” Because Q is Q, he has a copy of The Telegraph on his tablet, the first page zoomed in to the headline story. “If they weren’t so trigger happy, we’d at least still have one alive instead of two dead,” he continues on in a low, displeased voice. “Or one witness instead of none at all.”

Next to Q, Bond takes a slow pull from his bottle of water as he glances at the headlines.

“Saw it in Mallory’s office, but not the actual report itself. Local?” Another drink before the bottle gets capped and Bond drums his fingers against its sides.

“Finland, but they were both British.”

“Shame.”

The tablet exchanges hands and Bond scans the article, scrolling downwards even as each successive paragraph makes his eyes narrow just a little more, fingers stilled against his drink.

“I’ve been checking in on Interpol ever since the news broke,” Q says offhandedly as Bond passes the tablet back, speaking as if it’s perfectly normal to go around hacking the databases of international law enforcement agencies in his free time. At this point, Bond doesn’t even think to be surprised anymore that this is what their lunchtime conversations have become. “The reports they’ve filed so far seem to indicate that they’re taking this as an isolated incident, but the red tape is going to be messy, either way. Last I heard, BIRD is already flying some of their own over to poke around in the investigations.”

“And to make a complete nuisance of themselves as well, I’ll warrant. You’ve shown Marie the news?”

“No, and I’m putting it off for as long as I can.” Q pauses to take a bite out of his pasta, leaving the fork stabbed in swirl of fusilli. “She’ll find out on her own soon enough anyways, but until then, I’m not going to actively pursue the possibility of five hundred new questions until I’ve clocked out for the day.”

Bond nods in sympathetic understanding. Runt that she might be, what Marie lacks in size, she makes up for more than threefold in her insatiable love of finding out how things work, why they work, who they work for, and basically any other possible question under the sun.

 

 

 

The fact that Q usually indulges her incessant badgering is just one reason why if there’s any dragon in MI6 who knows how assault rifles are to be cleaned, disassembled and reengineered to have a range of almost twice the usual, it’ll definitely be Marie.

Out in the courtyard, the dragon in question is watching Niall finish up the last remains of his meal, Niall easily tearing a chunk of meat off his own share to nudge towards Marie when it becomes apparent that she had already finished her portion long before.

“You’ve been starving your dragon, Q?” Bond comments teasingly as he watches Marie fall onto the meat like she hasn’t been fed for weeks.

“Starving her?" echoes Q, indignant. He snorts and points his fork accusingly towards Marie who's chewing happily on a piece of meat as big as her own foreleg. "I'll have you know that she eats better than me, most days. Only the best cuts, and all marinated to her liking at that. If not for the fact that manufacturing deadly weapons actually pays decently, she would have eaten me out of hearth and home by now."

Q sighs and turns back to his own packed lunch.

"If you're going to tell me I've been spoiling her, you can save yourself the trouble because I already know it five times over."

“I think you hardly need telling when it’s obvious to everyone that she walks all over you.” Bond leans over and easily plucks a cherry tomato off the small salad residing in the side of Q’s container. “You like it, don’t you? Having a bossy woman in charge.”

“Yes, Bond,” Q says in a dry tone as he throws Bond a look for stealing his food. “It appeals to my inner masochist and need to be domineered by a three year old dragon the size of a very large dog, after all.” Even if Bond had any food on him for Q to steal, Q hasn’t stooped that those levels just yet.

“Always knew you had a kinky side.”

“Oh fuck off, you pervert,” retorts Q good-naturedly. “I’m willing to bet that Marie is learning all her attitude from Niall anyways, who in turn got it from you.”

“Following that chain of influence, I don’t even know why you’re so worried. It just shows that Marie’s attitude is in perfectly capable hands at the moment.” Bond inclines his head towards where Marie is now trying to lure Niall into a short flight around the compound, her wheedling making Niall grunt and half-heartedly bat her away until she finally consents to settle down beside him in sulky defeat. With Niall due for a post-ops physical with a BIRD sanctioned flight analyst in an hour or so, the larger dragon has no interest whatsoever in any sort of physical activity at the moment, huffing contentedly in the sun when Marie stops squirming next to him and they can both nap in relative peace.

“That Marie of yours is a good dragon, influence or not,” Bond adds just when Q thinks they’ve gone back to companionable silence. The courtyard has quietened at long last now that their respective dragons are starting to doze off. “She’s got good head on her shoulders that’ll only get better if you give her a few more years to settle down.”

“With much prayer and supplication, a few more years shouldn’t be that big of a problem.” Q has a small smile on his face now, the edges of his lips subtly tugged up at the corners in reflex to the warm happiness that sometimes pools in his chest whenever the conversation turns to Marie. “I’d like to think I don’t worry too much about her when it comes to how she’ll eventually turn out, but it’s still nice to know that someone else sees it too.”

“Even if it’s just some damned double-oh who doesn’t know go from stop on his best days? Your words, by the way, not mine.”

This manages to draw out a full laugh from Q and Bond secretly counts it as a win for his side, even though no one is actually keeping score.

“Yes, even then. Good job on the verbal memory, by the way. Where was that from? Tianjin?”

“Almost every operation, to be honest, but yes, Tianjin. I seem to recall some explosions too.”

The rest of the conversation degenerates back into its usual formula of sarcasm and sniping after that, innuendo-laden to the bitter end, and by the time Bond has to go wake Niall up for his physical, Q can only choose to gloss over the fact that he hasn’t stopped smiling since.

 

* * *

 

**interlude**

Q still remembers the first time he had seen Marie, curled in on herself in one of the indoor holding pens that the SIS keeps for injured dragons and the like. Though he hadn’t been at the hatching itself, word about how the dragonet was painfully undersized had still trickled over to his branch and so here Q was, having pulled his newly conferred rank of Quartermaster to end up crouching alone on the outside of the pen during one of his lunch breaks.

“Hello,” he had said to the tiny red dragon in the corner and she had looked up at him through the glass that separated them, eyes hopeful. “I thought you’d like some company.”

“Are you going to be my Rider?” Eight months in British hands while she was still an egg had more or less erased the French lilt to her words, but there was a hint of it still, her Rs soft and rolling.

“I’m not sure, actually. Don’t you have one yet?”

It was odd for hatchlings to spend more than a few days without a Rider, but given the SIS’ preference for dragons of a certain weight or flight class, it wasn’t too strange how five days post-hatching, no one had stepped up to claim her yet. As Q was looking at her now, it felt even stranger still that the SIS was still holding on to her here instead of shipping her off to a civilian seller. Small-sized dragons were starting to be in vogue again now, after all.

“No,” came the slightly glum reply, the dragon laying her head down again. “No one wants to be my Rider. I think everyone is angry at me for being so small, but it isn’t like I can choose to be small or big.”

The way she said it, _big_ had come out sounding like _beeg_ instead, and Q found himself having to hide a smile.

“Well,” Q said gently as he finally gave up on the crouching and just sat himself down on the floor. “Sometimes being small is a good thing, and you’re right about no one being able to choose whether they get to be big or small, so no one should ever be angry at you for that. Anyone who is just doesn’t know better.” A pause as Q tucked one loafer under the side of his thigh, sitting cross-legged in front of the pen. “Lots of people want small dragons now by the way, so I’m sure you’ll find a Rider soon enough.”

“Really?” There was that hopeful look again and the dragonet got up to take a few hesitant steps towards Q, small enough that she had to look up to properly meet Q’s eyes. “Do _you_ want a small dragon?”

“I’d love to have any sort of dragon, actually–,” admitted Q, “–even though my job wouldn’t make me the best Rider to have one.”

“Why’s that?”

Q had spent that lunch break explaining to her how he made dangerous things for a living, and if later, Administration suddenly had a new email from Q Branch requesting the runtling to be handed over to R&D for purposes only vaguely described as research, Q made sure that all footage of the pen from that day was strangely unavailable.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet._  
**Psalm 91:13**

**part two**

Kuala Lumpur drips with the last remains of late afternoon rain, the pavement still slick when Bond steps onto it and breathes in the acrid smell of thinned out smog. While not exactly a step up from Santorini, at least the sprawl of the city makes for wider roads than Fira, population and tourists alike spread out over a larger space.

Where Santorini had been a quick shoot and run, Kuala Lumpur is promising to be more of a slow extraction, hours upon hours of stakeout before they close in on what Mallory hopes will be the five-man circle MI6 has been dancing around for months by now.

“You smoke?” Next to him, MI6’s Southeast Asian liaison is already pulling out a pack of Marlboro Reds from her handbag, packing them against her hand before companionably offering the box to Bond.

“I would, but the one time I did try, my damned dragon almost bit me.”

She laughs and takes the box back in understanding, pulling out a cigarette with callused fingers.

“Thought that for a man with vices like yours, smoking would be a given. What’s the holy trinity again? Coffee, sex and cigarettes?” From the depths of her handbag, she procures a worn-looking lighter to light up with. “That’s some sound advice from your dragon though.” A pause as she brings the cigarette in her mouth close to the flame, hand cupped around it before it falls away and she draws a deep inhale that shakes loose some of the tension in her shoulders.

Bond nods and Dev (“You wouldn’t be able to pronounce the entirety of my first name even if you tried, white boy.”) pushes off from the railing she’s been leaning on, pacing the sidewalk as she quickly smokes her cigarette down to a stub. Their mark is taking longer than expected in the building across from them, but it won’t be the first time this week that they’ve been stuck waiting. Dev is good company at least, if a bit sharp at the edges sometimes. Bond knows for a fact that she keeps a spare folding knife in the same purse compartment as the one where she stashes her condoms (“What, you don’t like being prepared? Now pass the knife already, god.”) so he can deal with sharp, no problem at all.

“You’ve been smoking for a while?” Bond asks just to break the monotony of silence that’s stretching out between them. The both of them had exhausted their polite small talk skills within the first few hours of stake out together and now, the long days spent dogging the steps of their marks are filled with easy sniping instead, Bond having learnt that Dev can give just as good as she gets. Continuous sarcasm is tiring though, when the person on the receiving or giving end isn’t Q, so sometimes, a simple detour to twenty questions has to do instead.

“Since recruitment, actually.” Dev shrugs and breathes a thin trail of smoke to the post-rain breeze. “Figured that whatever’s going to fuck my lungs up will take longer than what I’ve got dealt to me, so why quit? I too–“ She flicks loose ash off the end of cigarette with a grin, “–like to live dangerously. Apparently so do you, coming out here bold as day with a dragon when every last Rider cum expat has high-tailed it out of the city since Naples happened.”

“Niall’s a big dragon, he can take care of himself.”

“And you’re a big boy who can do the same for yourself?”

“Now why would I need to do that when I’ve got you around?” Bond just smiles when Dev fake-chokes into her smoke, flipping him off with her free hand.

“Try that line on someone who gives a shit.” They lapse back into comfortable silence for a while, waiting their mark out a few more minutes before Dev speaks up again.

“I’m no Rider myself so I haven’t been keeping up with the cases,–“ she says slowly, “–but I do know how you lot can get with your dragons. With that Helsinki case back in July and now Naples…” Dev looks curiously at Bond over her cigarette. “Thoughts? They’ve all been British nationals, after all.”

“You want to know if MI6 is going in.”

“Well I’m certainly not after your personal angst here, Bond.” Dev rolls her eyes. “Do try to keep up.”

It’s Bond’s turn to casually flip her the bird this time before he crosses his arms, leaning against the railing that separates sidewalk from street.

“Last I checked in, there hasn’t been any word on a deeper investigation being in the works just yet,” he says “Two’s a coincidence and three’s a pattern though, so maybe that might change.”

“You think there’s going to be a third?”

“I hope not, but fucked if hope has anything to do with it.”

They drift back into amicable silence again before Dev suddenly drops her stub to the pavement to grind out under her heel. “Driver’s here,” she says as she jerks her head towards the building and Bond is already sliding back into the passenger seat of their rented car when the door on Dev’s side slams shut.

A sleek looking Mercedes has just pulled up the building’s front, idling.

“Any visual on Juntasa?” Dev asks as she starts their car up

“None just yet,” comes Bond’s careful reply. “But there’s a chance we might see Zhou with him. His flight got in around two-ish this afternoon, so he might have already been waiting.”

“Goddammit, as if being on-time isn’t bad enough, he has to be early too?” Dev adds a low curse in Tamil and Bond grunts his assent of Dev’s s sentiments, still watching out of the window when a tall, placid looking man emerges from the building lobby. A shorter, balding one who’s talking animatedly to a woman by his side follows him soon after.

“You’ve seen her before?” Bond leans back a little in his seat so Dev can get a clearer view of the woman next to Zhou before she disappears into the car first, Zhou and Juntasa following behind. “I’ve got nothing on my files for her.”

“Well your files are my files, so no. Possible mistress?” Dev squints at the Merc. “We should have known though, if he had a woman on the side. And she’ll have to be some mistress if he’s brought her along to the meet up.”

Waiting until the Merc starts to move out, Dev smoothly pulls their own car into the growing traffic while Bond wonders who in Surveillance is going to get their arses handed to them when they report a new addition to the core marks.

“If you get me close enough for a good visual, we might be able to run some photo ID. Could be no one worth looking up on, but– _fuck_ –“

It’s the sudden sound of revving that snaps Bond’s attention to the lane-way on his side, the oncoming truck that’s headed straight for them coming up much too fast for Bond to do anything other than make a grab at the steering wheel to try and force their car off the collision course. In the seat next to him, Dev is swearing loudly when their car swerves, tires screeching, and for one long moment, all Bond can hear is the sick scrape of metal against metal before they’re spinning, the rain-wet roads sending them towards oncoming traffic.

 

* * *

 

“You alive, Bond?”

Bond comes awake with a jolt and for a moment, the world blurs, everything bloody _painful_ before his vision settles and Bond groans, things snapping back into sharp focus.

“Wish I wasn’t at the moment, but yes.”

To his right, Dev has already started unbuckling herself, seemingly unharmed save for a short gash that’s slanting down the side of her cheek. The cut bleeds sluggishly and seeing it, Bond is suddenly aware of something trickling down the back of his neck, his hand coming away bloody when he feels for the source. Fucking head wounds.

“You know how long I was out?” Bond starts to extract himself from his seat as well, moving quickly even though he’s pretty sure he can’t smell any petrol coming from the car just yet.

“Nothing more than a few seconds, max.” Next to him, Dev is still doing the same, wrenching her car door open with a sort of viciousness that only field agents seem to possess. “I’m never letting you backseat drive again, by the way.”

“Nice to know what passes for a thank you in this country.”

Stumbling out of the car and onto the road, it’s clear that less time has passed than Bond had expected. Curious onlookers are only just beginning to gather on the sidewalk and when Bond looks back on the scene of the accident, it also becomes apparent that they’ve only managed to hit the road divider at a bad angle and not any of the oncoming cars.

“Well,” comes the sound of Dev’s voice by his side as they survey the damage together. She already has her phone in hand, set to dialling her HQ for someone to come deal with the local police. “On the bright side, _that_ was a shitty assassination attempt.”

“Do I even want to know the downside?”

In the distance, sirens are already starting to wail, someone in the crowd probably having already called for help the moment it all happened and Dev has a smile on her face, the kind that people get when it finally hits them that they’re still inexplicably alive.

“We’re not getting our fucking deposit back on the car.”

 

* * *

 

Moving around hurts, but Bond supposes he should expect that when the entire left side of his body is bruised to kingdom come. The impact had thrown him hard against the door and torn a shallow wound into the back of his neck, but other than being incredibly sore for the next week or so, there isn’t much to take from today in terms of battle scars.

He’s in the bathroom, gingerly examining a large bruise just above his hip when his mobile starts to trill from the bedroom, Bond grumbling under his breath as he lets his sleep shirt fall back down and goes to take the call.

“I’m assuming you finally heard about the accident and are calling to tell me how stupid I am for getting tailed?”

“Acci–…what?” Q stops, baffled for a moment and Bond takes the momentary pause to consider the various other reasons why Q would be calling at 8am London time. As it is right now, each reason is starting to sound a little less favourable than the last. “No, never mind about that for now, there’s no time. MI6 is pulling you out of KL immediately.”

“ _What_?” Bond pinches the bridge of his nose as he sits on the edge of the bed, feeling the headache from earlier threatening to come crawling back between his ears. “One bloody accident and–“

“Bond, I have no idea what sort of accident you’re going on about, but seeing that you are very much alive and still insufferable, this accident of yours is not a priority of mine right now and neither is it MI6’s. You’re getting pulled because something else came up and they don’t have anyone else for the job.”

And if that isn’t cause enough for a headache, then Bond doesn’t know what else is.

“Niall?” he asks wearily, hand falling to his lap. “Can’t imagine anything else they’d want that the other double-ohs don’t have.”

“If you’re in your hotel room, go check the news channels. They’re probably still looping the story since the media only got hold of it less than an hour back.”

Even if the request for Niall and the strange weariness in Q’s voice is already more than enough for Bond to know what to expect on the news, he still feels apprehension curling in his gut when he finally finds a channel set to the BBC.

“Seen it yet?” Q asks, still on the line as Bond watches the newscaster cut to some shaky footage probably filmed on someone’s mobile.

“I’ve seen enough,” mutters Bond in response and he mutes the television. “I’m guessing this is more of an order to come back rather than a polite suggestion?”

“You’re booked onto the 7am back to Heathrow. Pack your things and get your dragon, Bond. You’re coming back early.”

 

* * *

 

Dev picks up on the fifth ring, Bond bracing himself for her to tell him to fuck off because it’s 2am in the morning and they’ve just escaped sudden death not 12 hours ago.

“If this is about you hightailing it back to the motherland, HQ got to me first,” she says smoothly. “It was just one small, tiny attempt to kill us, Bond. Don’t be such a pansy.”

“For that, I’m going to tell them to send 006 in my place. I’ve heard that he’s moved up from finger-paints to actual crayons now, and you can use two syllable words with him.”

“That’ll still be a step-up from you, won’t it?”

“How do you know I wasn’t just dumbing down for your benefit?

Dev snorts and Bond can hear the telltale sounds of her moving about, the scrape of a chair leg against the floor and wood creaking before Dev finally settles.

“You’ve found your pattern, haven’t you?” she asks after a beat. “Your third. That’s why they need you back. Not too many double-ohs with dragons around your parts.”

“Right, even if it’s Niall they need more than me at this point.”

“Oh? Well it’s still nice to know that MI6 has been prioritising their agents properly.” Bond can almost hear the grin in Dev’s voice and in this moment, Bond thinks that he might actually miss having her around, razor-sharp wit and slightly terrifying disposition notwithstanding.

“In that case, you had better go on then,” she adds with a dramatic lilt to her voice. “Leave me alone here to deal with all the bad, bad men and future attempts on my life.”

“And let you run wild without a handler? If MI6 wanted mass destruction, they would have let me to do it instead of outsourcing. Your backup’s flying in the moment I get out, so if you want to wallow about my absence, you’ve only got about three hours to do it.”

“You sure that they’ll send someone competent? Because honestly, the last time they sent someone over didn’t inspire too much confidence.”

“Make sure to buy the non-toxic crayons, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Bastard,” Dev mutters laughingly and Bond can hear her pull the phone back a little, her voice coming in a bit distant. “I hope you can feel it through the phone line, Bond, because right now I’m flipping you off so hard, I just might sprain something.”

In the end, Bond doesn’t tell her to take care of herself and Dev hangs up without saying goodbye, but if Bond does send an expressive text to 006 warning him _not_ to cock things up too badly, then Dev doesn’t need to know at all.

 

* * *

 

 

The covered pavilions that crown the JW Marriott are quiet save for the pockets of late night conversations between dragons who are still awake and when Bond walks up to where Niall is housed, he’s not surprised to see his dragon blinking back at him.

“There’s no gunfire so it’s not an immediate emergency, but it _is_ 2 in the morning so I’m guessing it’s an emergency all the same? It’s a good thing I’m still bloody jet-lagged.”

“We’re getting pulled back,” Bond says a little tiredly. “Flight’s in five hours.”

He pats the side of Niall’s bulk and after a moment’s consideration, sits himself down just by Niall’s foreleg, Niall twisting around so he can still face Bond like this.

“This is about Munich, isn’t it?”

“You already know?” Bond closes his eyes and rests his head against Niall’s shoulder, wincing a little when the action pulls at some of his still sore muscles. “Then I suppose you can also guess as well why they want us back. Q called earlier, and they want you sitting in for this one.”

Niall grunts and shifts slowly so that Bond is leaning on a smoother incline, wings folded further back to give Bond space. “News like that travels fast,” he muses. “But if given a choice, I’d still rather be running recon here rather than going back to whatever clusterfuck that’s waiting for us.”

“You and me both,” sighs Bond with feeling.

Niall nudges his Rider as gently as he can, mindful of the bruises there and despite his better judgement, Bond stays by Niall until the sky lightens and it’s time to leave.

 

* * *

 

Because flying the conventional way always has Niall feeling restless, Bond leaves him with Marie in the courtyard, Niall already starting a quick, tight circuit along the circumference of the yard when Bond goes indoors.

“Anything new?” he says by means of greeting the moment the bright lights of Q branch assault him and Q turns around from where he had been facing an assembly of screens, the slump of his shoulders and the state of his hair a good indication that Q is just as tired as Bond feels.

“Nothing more than what I’ve already sent you on the way back. There’s a connection, definitely, but it’s…” Q pushes his glasses up as he rubs at his eyes, exhausted. “It’s not showing itself yet.” He ducks his head to smother a yawn before he gets up, Bond trailing after him towards the main worktable. While Bond had managed to sneak a few hours sleep between reading up on the previous cases and going through the new mission briefs on the flight back, Q looks like he hasn’t slept since he last called Bond almost 20 hours ago.

“It might seem a bit redundant to outfit you when this is akin to a meet and greet, but the dragon from Munich? He’s the only one left alive from the events so far, and we’re not about to any chances. That’s why we’ve got you and Niall on this instead of someone from BIRD.” Q pulls a face. “God knows the only defence they have is death by paperwork or something equally stupid,” he adds.

Even in the midst of this impending disaster, Bond allows himself a grim smile at Q’s everlasting distaste for the local dragon governing body.

“As if BIRD would ever let any of their own go do the dirty work,” Bond comments lightly before his voice takes on a more serious tone. “You think someone might actually try to finish the job?”

Q shrugs, pushing a few gun magazines towards Bond who pockets them deftly.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “At this point, I don’t even know if the dragons are targets at all, or if they’re just collateral damage. The last two dragons were put down by local law enforcement instead of being taken out like how their Riders were, but the killer might have been counting on that.” A bitter look passes on Q’s features. “It’s easier to have someone trained doing it instead of wasting bullets.”

Bond would know. He hasn’t had the displeasure of killing too many dragons during his tenure here, but the few that he did have to, he had always done with Niall’s help, making sure the kill was as quick as possible. Dragons didn’t go down as easy as humans did and most dragons lost the will to live anyways, once their own Riders died.

“How long exactly, since they pulled the dragon out?”

“By now…” Q pauses in his rummaging, absently laying a spare gun onto the table as he does the calculations in his head. “Probably just under 24 hours? 23? He’s been transported out of Munich to one of the breeding grounds in Dorotea for now since that’s the only place that’s empty enough at this time of the year.”

“Doretea? The one in Sweden?”

“I don’t know if there’s one out of Sweden, but yes, that’s the one. The closest we can get you is a charter to Umeå Airport and then it’s another 2.5 hours to the grounds.” Q spares Bond a brief look, glance hovering at Bond’s side.

“You _can_ still fly, can’t you?” he asks. “If not, I’ll have ground transport arranged and you can meet Niall in Dorotea.”

“And here I thought someone was telling me that my accident wasn’t a top priority of his,” drawls Bond, amused. Q just coolly turns back to sorting through his equipment. “Is that concern or is that concern I hear?”

“It’s common sense, Bond.” Q whirls around with a voice recorder in hand, shoving it none too gently at Bond who lets off a louder-than-necessary groan when Q catches him on a particularly painful patch of skin under his suit. “Think of the trouble you’ll put everyone through when you fall off mid-flight.”

“If,” corrects Bond. “If I fall off. Which I won’t.”

He gingerly pats an invisible crease on his suit back down and pockets the voice recorder.

“By the way, that was an actual voice recorder you gave me, right? Not something explosive that’s cleverly disguised as one?”

“It comes with very dangerous settings like pause, play, rewind and record.”

Q considers the spare Walther on the table for a moment before sliding it over to Bond who catches it deftly, slipping it into the holster under his suit jacket.

“Mallory initially wanted to send you off with only the recorder,” he adds as he watches Bond readjust his jacket. “But I told him you’d sulk if there wasn’t something violent in the pack, so you can thank me for the added fun. Now off you go, double-oh seven. There’s a dragon that needs talking to.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

**UK Worldwide Travel Alert for Riders**

LONDON, England – BIRD has issued a global travel alert for all Riders due to the increase in unprovoked attacks against Riders. While overseas travel has not been suspended, Riders are nonetheless encouraged to make alternate travel plans for the time being.

The department also states that though past attacks have mainly been concentrated in predominantly European regions, Riders who intend to travel overseas should remain vigilant at all times and have their identification documents up to date.

This alert comes shortly after news of the third murder of a British Rider in Munich on Thursday. (more on page 11)

 

* * *

 

It’s mid afternoon in Dorotea when they finally reach the breeding grounds, a sullen looking keeper having been assigned to receive them and show them in.

“Be careful,” he says to Bond in thickly accented English when he keys in the pass code to the main grounds, fingers jabbing at the keypad with practiced motions. “He's violent, so it's better to stay far.”

Eight numbers later, the mechanism holding the doors shut whirrs and there’s a metallic click as they unlock, the keeper sliding them open easily before gesturing for Bond and Niall to step in.

“He’s alone?” Bond asks. The corridor leading out into the grounds is unlighted and far more quiet than Bond is used, no dragon voices or sounds of flight coming from the brightness beyond the dark.

“Alone,” confirms the keeper. “No other dragon.”

Bond nods his thanks and in return, the keeper only gives him a curious once-over before shrugging and turning to leave, clearly uninterested in following them in.

“It feels wrong to be here,” Niall murmurs to Bond once the keeper is out of earshot. “It’s too quiet. I don’t like it.” He bumps his nose against Bond’s hand when they start walking in and though it’s only a short distance to the enclosure from where they are, the disconcerting quietness of the grounds makes the corridor feel longer than it really is.

“That makes two of us,” Bond mutters back. Niall’s claws are clicking on the cement, the sound interspaced with Bond’s own lighter footfalls. “It’s too quiet here for it to be normal.”

“You think?”

Bond feels Niall’s nose seek out his palm one more time before they step out into the light, the brightness that they emerge into almost a shock to the senses after walking in the dark. At this time of the day, the grounds are filled with midsummer sun filtering in through the retractable glass dome that shelters the enclosure, unkempt grass coming up high to Bond’s ankles when he steps inside.

Built into the sides of the walls and rising up around the grassy centre, all the dragon pens are empty save for one.

“Jasper?” Bond ventures as they draw nearer to where the Greyling is lying, curled away from the sun. “I’m James and this is Niall. Would it be okay if we talk to you for a moment?”

The dragon raises his head and this close, it’s easier to see the chains that are encircling its legs, the metal links rattling when Jasper struggles to his feet. There’s a wildness in his eyes that no haze of sedation can take away.

“Have you come to kill me?” he asks, voice flat when Bond and Niall come closer still.

“No,” Bond says gently. “We just want to talk, that’s all. Help as well, if you want us to.” Bond has his hands out in front of him, palms upturned and even then, Jasper still bares his teeth in an angry snarl when Bond starts to move forwards.

“Talk?” Jasper sneers and he suddenly lurches out towards Bond, only to be held back by his restraints. Next to Bond, Niall lets out a warning growl of his own until a hand on his side quietens him down. “Talking is all they’ve been wanting to do since I got here. BIRD and the police and all those people in uniforms, all wanting the same thing.”

Jasper turns to Niall when he speaks next, the threat of Bond seemingly forgotten for the time being.

“You,” he spits out accusingly at the other dragon. “You’re with them. You want it as well, don’t you? As if you haven’t already taken enough from me.”

“All we want–,” Niall says in a low, controlled voice, “–is to try and help you.”

“No.” The other dragon makes a low, keening sound in his throat and he shakes his head back and forth as his eyes go distant. “No, that’s not it. You can’t help. You can’t bring her back and I don’t _want_ your help.”

“Jasper–“

Jasper lunges again, roaring in anger and pain this time when the chains hold him back, Niall quickly moving to place himself in front of Bond even though it’s clear that Jasper can’t come any closer, no matter how hard he tries.

The cuffs around Jasper’s legs aren’t made for cruelty, but with all the thrashing he’s doing, the metal is starting to cut into his scales, crushing them inwards so that thin lines of blood trickle down into the trampled grass.

“Useless, all of you,” Jasper growls when he collapses back down onto the grass, sides heaving with the exertion. “Coming in with your questions and your laws. Your Rider.”

Jasper swings his head towards Bond and his gaze is half angry, half confused when Bond meets it, Jasper breaking away first with a small sound. The fury behind his madness has finally broken down into grief and when Jasper breathes, the exhale is shuddering.

“She’s dead,” Jasper says softly when neither Bond or Niall fills the silence that falls back around them, the very air itself heavy to breathe into. He sounds almost stunned when the words leave his mouth. “She’s dead, and she’s not coming back.”

A terrible, broken sound escapes from his throat then and Jasper curls in tighter on himself, head lowered to the ground.

“If you’re here to kill me as well–” he murmurs, “–then just go ahead and do it already. I know what you’ve done to the others. I know what happened to them.” He scratches at the grass with his claws, agitated by the memory.

“She told me about the earlier ones. Read to me about them from the newspapers, before…” The scratching stops and Jasper is digging deep into the ground, muscles coiled tight before he blinks once, slowly, and whatever fight that had been left in him dissolves away.

“Most Riders do that, don’t they?” he asks, more to himself than anything. “Read to you?”

The rumble that grows from Jasper’s throat is low and despairing, Bond’s hand twitching at his side with the inexplicable urge to reach for Niall and make sure his dragon is still there. In front of him, Niall has turned to look at Bond over one shoulder.

“Wait outside,” Niall says in an undertone and Bond nods, inconspicuously slipping the voice recorder he had been carrying with him under the loop of a saddle strap on Niall’s side.

Maybe years ago, Bond would have wanted to try and stick this out, maybe spend a bit more time hacking at a challenge before even thinking of admitting defeat, but by now, Bond knows a closed door when he sees one. Knows when to let someone else try to open it instead of picking the lock or even forcing his way through on his own.

“Be careful, okay?” Bond whispers back, laying his palm against Niall for a long second. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

Niall shoots Bond a look that says he’ll try, even if he thinks Bond shouldn’t even be worrying to begin with and at this, Bond can only smile, shaking his head a little when he backs off.

“Bloody dragon,” he mutters fondly to himself and watches Niall from the dark of the corridor for a few minutes more before he turns to leave.

 

* * *

 

It takes more than an hour and a well meaning, though thoroughly undrinkable mug of tea from the keeper before Niall emerges from his conversation with Jasper.

“You alright?” Bond asks as they stand in the open air of the receiving area and Niall is unmoving when Bond gently frees the recorder from Niall’s side, slipping it back into his pocket. “I trust it wasn’t the most cheerful of conversations.”

“About as cheerful as a funeral, if that’s what you’re implying.” Niall grunts, obviously displeased with whatever he had heard while in there. “There’s a solid hour of audio for you to wade through, but I wouldn’t count on it to build a useable profile or anything. He can’t remember much. Doesn’t want to remember, I think, and I can’t blame him.”

Though the smaller scales scattered on Niall’s snout are cold to touch from the slowly dipping temperatures, Bond lets Niall lean into his hand all the same, Niall staying very still there for a moment to just breathe for a while before he draws away, shaking out his wings.

It would have been hard to catch if Bond hadn’t been looking for it, but Bond can see the exact moment when Niall physically pulls himself together again. Can see the way Niall’s muscles tense as Niall draws his wings close to his bulk and snaps them back out at full wingspan, the joints popping.

“So,” Niall says lightly. “Ready to make it back before this place makes me feel like I’ll never be happy again?”

They’ll have to be in the air soon, if they want to get to their charter before nightfall.

“Ready if you are.”

“Good.” Sighing, Niall crouches to let Bond tighten the straps of his harness. “I’ve been ready to leave since we got here.”

 

* * *

 

At Niall’s usual speed, the flight out of Dorotea and back into Umeå will take two, maybe two and a half hours at most. Even less, if they really want to make it back before nightfall, but today, when Niall clearly needs the cold and wide, empty spaces to shake off whatever the talk with Jasper has done to him, Bond isn’t in any rush to get home sooner than needed. Niall needs the flight time and Bond isn’t the kind to deny his dragon that, even though Bond’s bruises still hurt something awful when Bond bends low against Niall’s neck to lessen the wind-drag.

“So–“ Bond says slowly once they’ve passed the first half-mile, “–back at the grounds, you didn’t get to answering my question.”

“You had a question?” It’s a lame feint and Bond knows it, flicking Niall lightly on the side of the neck to let Niall know that there’s no point in being evasive.

“You know which one.”

“I’m fine,” grumbles Niall and he twists his head round to look at Bond, eyes slitted a little to get his point across before he turns his attention back to the horizon. “Just…thrown, I suppose. It’s not like we actually talk to dragons who have gone through what he has. Did you know that they didn’t even let Jasper see his Rider’s body?”

There is a pause as Niall lets out a discontented growl.

“He doesn’t even know where or when she’s going to be buried and it’s all because of those bastards at BIRD.”

After that, Niall goes silent and Bond doesn’t push him to speak, leaving Niall alone with his thoughts for the time being. A full twenty minutes pass before Niall speaks up again.

“He’ll probably be put down after this, won’t he?”

“I suppose so.” They’ve never sugar-coated the truth from each other and Bond isn’t about to start now. “Do you think they should?”

“Jasper will probably thank them for it, but if you’re talking about this from a moral standpoint…” Bond feels one of Niall’s shoulders roll under his hand, the dragon equivalent of a shrug while in mid-air. “I don’t know. It doesn’t bother me as much as you think it does though, so you can stop your fretting.”

“I didn’t even say anything about–“ Bond starts to protest but Niall just dips sideways, forcing Bond to stop talking and instead focus very hard on not falling off.

“The implication was there, even if your emotionally-stunted self wants to deny it until hell freezes over.” Niall rights himself with ease and has turned around again, watching Bond with a strange intensity in his eyes.

“Since we’re on already on the topic, I’m letting you know now that unless I’m the one who finally cracks and kills you myself, you’re not allowed to die before me, okay?” he adds a little curtly.

“Okay,” Bond says at length and the word comes out softer than he had intended. This isn’t something they talk about if they can help it, the reality of the situation far too close to home to dwell on most of the time, but given today’s circumstances, it doesn’t seem wrong to bring it up. “I’ll try. The same goes for you as well, just so you know.”

At this, Niall lets out something that sounds suspiciously like a laugh, Bond knowing that the moment has passed when Niall swings his attention back to the horizon as he flies on.

“Well that’s just brilliant,” Niall says wryly. “Now we either have to die together or live forever.”

It doesn’t take long for the simple joy of flight to ease the tension out of Niall after that, Bond feeling the residue stiffness of Niall’s movements dissipate with each mile that they pass and by the time they’re flying over the town of Asele, Niall is comfortable enough for their conversation to meander back to the topic of Jasper and Munich.

“He didn’t actually say much after you had left,” Niall says thoughtfully, dipping to glide at a lower altitude so he can have a look at the town. “Just ranted a lot, repeating the same things over and over again.”

“Did he manage to see who shot his Rider?”

“He might have, but he didn’t sound sure. Didn’t want to talk too much about it too, so I couldn’t get anything concrete from him.”

Bond sighs. They should have known better than to go on a wild goose chase for information like this. “It was worth a shot anyways.”

“True.” Asele growing smaller and smaller behind them, Niall banks a few degrees southwards, letting the wind glide him for a distance. “From what I can gather, Jasper actually tried to chase down the bastard who killed his Rider, which actually explains the eleven person body count quite well.”

There’s a moment of silence from Bond’s end before Bond finds it in himself to response, a low “Fuck,” that Niall hums in agreement with. “It just had to happen at the square, didn’t it? There has to hundreds of people in that area at almost any given time of the day.”

“Even more in the evenings since that’s when the dinner crowds start coming out. Remember the lines outside the Raskeller, or whatever it’s called? If the Marienplatz is still anything like how it was back then, Jasper couldn’t have picked a worse time or place to go rogue.”

They’ve been to Munich before, a long, long time ago when the RAF was still only an option out of many and MI6, a quaint eccentricity. During the spring months after Bond’s last university year, Bond had went to see Northern Europe with Niall, charting them long, meandering routes that eventually had them wandering into the Marienplatz one late April evening.

There, Niall had scoffed at the small, stone dragon that guarded one side of Mary’s Column while Bond had paid a ridiculous amount of money for bottled water, the shopkeeper eying Niall with badly disguised interest the entire time. Looking back now, it’s not a bad memory, but Bond doesn’t think he can ever imagine how it’d be like to go back to a time as simple as that.

“Do you think anyone is going to try and legislate some sort of stupid ruling about dragons in public places after this?” Niall voices after a while and the Bond snaps out of his musings.

“There’s always bound to be someone trying something or other with regards to you lot. Knowing how the NAP has been acting lately, they’ll probably have Rhys Hughes be the first one to jump on the dragon control wagon.”

“Fuck Rhys Hughes,” Niall says with feeling and grunts out a disgusted sound, as if Rhys’ name leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “He isn’t going to be doing any of the jumping when he’s practically driving the metaphorical wagon. Can you believe that BIRD put the likes of him on the committee overseeing the new breeding grounds in Staffordshire? BIRD can talk about equal representation all they want, but he’s a raging anti-dragonist if I’ve ever seen one and no amount of political correctness is going to hide that.”

“We can always chalk this up to BIRD yet again having their heads too far up their arses to realise.”

“Or someone in the NAP having very deep pockets,” comes the dark reply. “I wouldn’t put it past either of them, to be honest.”

Though Niall can’t see it, Bond’s mouth is set into a grim line. For all of his disinterest in politics, the National Action Party’s stance on dragon ownership is still something that’s been the proverbial thorn in the sides of all Riders and Rhys Hughes is just the latest in a long line of anti-dragon politicians the NAP has been parading out ahead of the upcoming elections.

“Well, think of the bright side,” Bond says after a moment’s thought. “If Hughes stays on as part of the Staffordshire committee, it’ll only be a matter of time before he goes too far and one of the dragons there tries to eat him.”

“As if we eat trash like him,” Niall huffs, but there’s amusement in his voice all the same. “But even if we did, I’m placing my bets on an Ironwing taking the first bite out of him. “

 

* * *

 

**interlude**

Before all of this, before the globe-trotting and the espionage, Bond and Niall had been part of the Royal Air Force. Aerial reconnaissance and interpretation is a good place to be when you’re a Rider, Niall’s breeding and flight speed alone already more than enough to grant Bond the rank of Wing Commander, never mind Bond’s own more than impressive service record. Another year or two and maybe Bond would have even made Group Captain, working his way up the ranks and staying there.

Then came Afghanistan.

2007, Operation Achilles.

On one hot, dusty weekend flying recon over Sangin, Bond had lost eight men to unexpected enemy fire, the number probably higher if they had decided to double back for support. Instead, Niall had hit the ground snarling and though that wasn’t the first time that Bond had killed a man, Bond would never forget how it felt like to wrench guns form the hands of dying men when his own ran out.

One month later, back in London when Niall still thought he could see the shine of blood under his claws, MI6 had called.

Flash-forward five years and a lifetime apart, it’s a different sort of war that they’re fighting now.

Tall shadows in the corners, instead of white desert sun. Suits and champagne and chandeliers, instead of emerald-eyed children hiding in the poppy fields, watching dragons fly overhead.

Bond doesn’t like to draw comparisons between the two, but sometimes, there are just some parallels that will never go away.

Collateral damage is what they call it in official reports, back in Afghanistan and even now in MI6. The location doesn’t make Bond hate the word any less though, despising it with a cold anger that sits like a stone in his chest. Like how Bond doesn’t care to keep track of the people that he has killed, he doesn’t like to remember the devastation he has to leave behind.

In Cape Town, watching a grieving Winchester fold its wings mid-flight and plummet to the ground after Bond had shot its Rider out of her saddle, Niall looking away when they pass its mangled body on the hillside.

In Riau, sheltering village children on Niall’s back from a Pascal’s Blue when its grief turned to rage and eight stilt houses took the brunt of it, fifteen people trapped screaming under the wreckage.

Bond had used up an entire magazine trying to bring the dragon down that day, and this is why Bond doesn’t like to remember. This is why Bond hates the word collateral damage.

 

* * *

 

“Please tell me you’ve found something, at least,” Bond says the moment Q picks up, having spent a full half an hour waiting for the charter to refuel before he had caved to boredom and called Q.

“I’m taking that you don’t have anything too substantial on your end?”

“That would probably depend on whether you consider an hour’s worth of ranting and raving from an upset dragon substantial.” Bond allows himself a sigh as he sinks lower into his chair, the three hour flight with Niall having done nothing for the bruises he had collected in Kuala Lumpur. “I hate to say it, but for this, they might have been better off sending a BIRD official instead. The place was emptier than a goddamn tomb, and about as cheerful to boot.”

On his end of the line, Q makes an almost sympathetic sound and Bond moving his mobile to his other ear, legs stretched out in front of him.

“Well,” Q is musing when Bond has switched over. “I have some good news and bad news? Good news is I think there _might_ be an inkling of a possible connection.”

“And the bad news?”

“The bad news is that it’s a long shot. A very long shot, actually.”

“But there’s a connection, at least?” Bond forces himself to straighten up for this, trying not to groan when the sharp edges of the chair’s armrest dig into his side. “ At the rate things are happening, I’ll take anything over nothing at all.”

“Right,” says Q, still sounding a bit unconvinced. “So we ran what we could through the systems. Three victims, three sets of records. Everything, from phone calls to credit card statements, we’ve combed through all of it to look for any overlaps, but there’s been nothing at all. They all lived at different ends of the country, for gods sake.”

“But…?” prompts Bond.

“It’s going to sound stupid,” Q admits. “It was in their bank statements and the more I look at it, the more it feels like we’re grasping at straws here.”

“Is that actual uncertainty I’m hearing? Doubt?”

“Oh piss off Bond, you’re not the one who’s going to have to go to Mallory with this.”

“I’ll piss off after you tell me what it is that has you sounding like a uni student unsure about putting out on a first date.”

There’s a disgruntled silence from Q before he speaks up again and Bond feels irrationally pleased at being practically able to sense Q pinching the bridge of his nose, the both of them having gone through enough phases of frustration with each other to pick up on small tells like these.

“The one thing they have in common besides the usual bill paying is that all three have been debiting a fixed amount from their bank accounts for the last few years. Every month, no fail, a 10% cut from their incomes made out to a religious organisation.”

“They’re…tithing?” Bond hadn’t been raised in church, but the vocabulary isn’t unfamiliar. “It could be worth looking into.”

“It’s still a long shot though. Remember what I said about all three of them being from different places? If they had been paying it out to the same damned church, we’d already have a lead, but it’s all going to different places. The only reason why I’m thinking of bringing this in to Mallory is because only about 7% of the national population clocks in a regular church attendance, and within that, the number of people who are devout enough to tithe regularly will be even lower.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“I’m having someone get me concrete numbers and stats as we speak, but the information looks sound enough.”

The sound of Q fiddling with something on his end comes over muffled, Bond making lazy guesses about it. From what he can hear, Q is probably pulling a sweater on.

“Also, if we’re bringing this up to Mallory–” Q continues once the muffled sounds have stopped, “–experience tells me that we’d better have damned good evidence to base our claims on.

“It sounds solid enough to me, but then again, MI6 isn’t exactly a democracy, so my vote doesn’t count for anything.”

“Your opinion does though. And before you start getting big headed, I’m only asking because you’re the only other Rider with the security clearance for this.”

“Hurtful as always, Q. Absolutely hurtful.” Bond grins and shifts his legs out of the way to let Niall flop down onto the floor next to him, the dragon having wandered over at the sound of lightening conversation. “And here I thought you were asking because we were friends. Now, I’ll have to uninvite you to my birthday and everything.”

“Your loss,” Q replies easily. “You and 006 will just have to braid each others hair and paint your toenails without me. A huge disappointment, I’m sure.”

“I’ll save the red nail polish for you, sweetheart. I know how you like it because it compliments your hair.”

Bond is sure that he can actually hear Q rolling his eyes this time and at his feet, Niall is doing the same at Bond.

“I’m just going to pretend the last ten seconds didn’t happen and tell you to check in with whoever’s still awake at HQ when you arrive. I’ll probably see you when I see you.

“Tomorrow, that means?”

“Yes, tomorrow, you needy child. Now get off the phone and onto the charter, Bond. I know for a fact that they’re probably waiting on your incompetent arse.”

 

* * *

 

“I thought you said I’d see you tomorrow,” Bond says when he walks into Q branch at an ungodly hour, his tone far too cheerful for such a time. In a far corner of the main floor, Q is slumped at a computer with Marie asleep at his feet.

“It _is_ tomorrow, in case you haven’t noticed,” answers Q in a dull voice and he barely looks up from where he’s scrolling through copies of the victims’ paper trails, unflinching even when Bond comes to a stop right in front of his desk. With Bond this close, Q doesn’t even need to move, merely extending an arm above his screen and holding his palm out for the voice recorder that Bond is here to drop off.

Half a table away, Bond eyes it with the kind of trepidation he reserves for particularly gruesome crime scenes.

“No,” he says firmly after a moment’s consideration. “If you think I’m going to willingly give you more work to bury yourself under at two in the bloody morning, you really need to re-evaluate your life choices. I’m not giving you _anything_.”

Without missing a beat, Q curls all his fingers inwards save for the middle one, leaving it that way until Bond gets the message loud and clear.

“Recorder,” Q enunciates slowly and he shoots Bond a dark look over the top of his screen. “Give. Now.”

“No,” comes the stubborn reply again. Rather than continue this argument further, Bond chooses instead to go kneel on the floor, right by where Marie is.

“In case it isn’t obvious enough–” he says lightly, “–I’m going to wake your dragon up, have her guilt trip you for making her sleep on the floor like this and then make sure the both of you actually go home for more than three hours at a time.”

With that, Bond places a gentle hand against the curve of Marie’s back before Q can protest, only needing to stroke it twice before Marie stirs awake. Bleary, she cracks one sleepy eye open at Bond.

“Are we going home yet?” she mumbles, arching up into Bond’s touch.

“Yes, we are,” Bond answers on Q’s behalf and Marie pushes her snout at Q’s pants leg, Q feeling a tell-tale twang of guilt start to grow in his chest when Marie snuffles drowsily at his feet. “We’re going home right now, like we should have done five hours ago if not for your workaholic Rider. Niall is going to take you back while I drive Q, so you can go on ahead and meet him out in the courtyard, alright?”

“Okay,” she agrees easily and with one last snuffle at Q’s calf, starts stumbling out towards the courtyard where Niall is waiting

“You know…” Q says in resignation as he watches his dragon leave, having apparently taken Bond’s word at face value as usual. “If you were half this efficient while running operations, MI6 wouldn’t have to budget so much for their double-oh sector.”

“But where’s the fun in efficiency when all it does is give you less explosions?” Bond pulls Q’s messenger bag from off the floor and sets it on the table, waiting for Q to finish powering down his monitors. “Admit it, you like running with a bigger budget anyways. Gives you an excuse to make new toys for yourself.”

“Those toys–“ Q sniffs as he shoulders his bag, “–happen to save your sorry arse a few times a week, thank you very much. And since when did you add emotional manipulation through means of dragon to your skill set, Bond?”

“Why, are you impressed?” The smirk on Bond’s face is borderline insufferable as usual and Q can’t even find it in himself to protest when Bond shepherds him out of the office. “You can tell me all about it in the car.”

 

* * *

 

The company car that Bond commandeers from MI6’s fleet is warm, and the seats, dangerously comfortable against Q back when he slides in. Sitting in the passenger seat now, Q is sure that if he hadn’t agreed to this while nursing the strange combination of being mildly angry yet grateful at Bond’s intervention, this could actually be a place he’d fall asleep in, lulled by the sound of radio-wave classics playing over late night traffic.

“You couldn’t just let the night staff sort through the information again?” Bond asks after they’ve sped through their first traffic light. With every passing mile, Q has found himself sinking progressively lower into the plush leather upholstery. “How much sensitive information can mortgage payments and grocery receipts contain anyways?”

“More than you know, if you look at the right places.” Q shifts around on the seat until the strap of his bag isn’t cutting into his shoulder. “And you know exactly why I’m doing this myself instead of letting the night minions paw through it.”

“Because you’re an immense masochist who has an aversion to regular sleeping schedules?” ventures Bond.

“We’re talking about me here, not you. Everyone knows that I fit the sadistic trope more anyways; just ask any of my branch staff.” A stifled yawn and Q forces himself to straighten before he really does fall asleep, anger and gratitude not quite enough when pitted against exhaustion. “It’s not that I don’t trust the night staff, but sometimes, for things like these, I just prefer to make sure that nothing accidentally gets looked over. Two sets of eyes being better than one and all that.”

The look that Bond throws Q at this isn’t one that he can place, not really, but Q is certain that it’s not a bad one at least.

“So how was Sweden?” Q attempts when he’s sure he’s on the brink of falling asleep again. As empty as the roads are tonight, West Kensington is still a distance away from Vauxhall and Q will be damned before he ends up dozing off while next to Bond.

“Sweden…” Bond drums his fingers on the wheel, thinking as they wait for a traffic light to change from red to green. “Are you asking in a geographical, is it a nice place to visit way? Or is this more of a do I need to convince you to go for a psych eval sort of question?”

“Treat it however you want, I’m honestly just trying to stay awake here. I probably won’t even remember anything in the morning.”

Something like an amused snort escapes form Bond and the sound is so unexpected that Q has to turn his face away towards the window so that the almost-smile on his face will be less obvious.

“Because I’m in a merciful mood tonight, I’ll skip the eight hundred lewd replies I could have possibly given to that and just say that Sweden was bad.”

Bond has his eyes straight on the road as he speaks, voice a little more heavy when he speaks next.

“The dragon, Jasper, he would only talk to Niall and even then, Niall couldn’t get much out of him. You’ll see what I mean when you get to the recordings in the morning.”

There’s a particular stress on the word _morning_ and Bond does look at Q this time, Q wisely choosing to ignore the critical gaze that Bond has pinned on him.

“Do you think they’ll put him down after this?” Q asks, voice deceptively light.

“Niall actually asked me the exact same thing, earlier.” Bond lets out a sigh as they turn into a familiar street. “I told him they probably will and that’s the truth, isn’t it? It’s not like there are any other options available. Dragons don’t take deaths the same way that Riders do.”

“And that’s just unfair, isn’t it?” It’s more statement than question, the way Q says it. He has his fingers pressed into his thigh as he speaks, the only sign of displeasure he’s allowing himself. “It’s unfair because that’s the kindest thing we can do for them when our lives are so short and theirs are so long.”

“That’s why we try so hard to make everything worth it while we can, I guess.” They’ve pulled up to Q’s flat by now and the rest of the street is as deserted as they come, only streetlights and shadows left.

Q nods in quiet agreement before he starts gathering up his things, Bond getting out of the car with Q to watch the sky in case Niall hasn’t already dropped Marie off. So far, there’s nothing but the half dark that London will always be in at night, the city lights too bright for a true kind of darkness.

“Thanks for the ride.” The sound of the car door slamming shut on Q’s side is painfully loud in the stillness they’re standing in and somewhere, a neighbour’s dog lets out a warning bark. “I know you just came back from Dorotea, so you didn’t actually have to do this.”

“I didn’t?” Bond feigns surprise, leaning over the roof of the car with a ready smile after having given up on the lookout. “Damn, I can’t get a refund, can I?”

He pauses to let Q let out the customary groan before going on.

“But don’t mention it, really. Contrary to popular belief, I sometimes do feel an inkling of responsibility over the care and minding of my resident Quartermaster, especially when he seems intent on working himself into an early grave.”

“That’s only because you know no one else is going to willingly give you explosives after I die.”

“You don’t even willingly give me explosives when you’re alive,” Bond points out and Q just heaves the strap of his messenger bag onto his shoulder, standing on the curb as he fishes around for his keys.

“Believe it or not, Niall actually thanks me for that on a weekly basis.”

“Niall is a traitorous reptile who doesn’t know better.”

Keys in hand, Q makes his way towards his building and when he looks over at Bond, the other man is still leaning by his car, giving Q a mock salute when he catches Q’s glance. Looking back on it later, Q will blame exhaustion and sleep deprivation for his actions, but in that moment, Q only smiles and returns the salute with a wave of his own.

“Goodnight, Bond,” he calls. “Do try to make it home in one piece.”

 

* * *

 

“I trust you had a nice, long talk with Q in the car?” Niall asks innocently from his spot by the balcony when Bond trudges in through the doors of his own flat at three in the morning. “Or did he fall asleep on the way and leave you all on your lonesome?”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Bond gives Niall a look that says it’s obviously too late for them to be having this conversation now and Niall just casually examines a claw on his foreleg, intent on not giving Bond the satisfaction of an immediate response.

“I’m just saying that it must be…nice, to be in an enclosed space with Q for a while, without either me or Marie getting in the way. Especially when it’s late at night.”

“And when Q is half delirious from lack of sleep?” Bond flicks Niall in the side when he passes his dragon, the action more figurative than anything since the hard plates of Niall’s scales hurt Bond’s fingers more than Niall himself. “God, I cant even drive a tired colleague home from work without you turning this into a romantic comedy, can I?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of action-drama, actually.” Niall yawns, inching inwards a little to where it’s more comfortable and the early morning air won’t nip at his tail. “Nicholas Cage can play you and–“

“Stop before I sell you off to a snotty young millionaire. I’ve been looking for a new car lately and I’m sure there’s a black market somewhere for older dragons.”

Niall makes a sound like laughing and Bond can only ignore his dragon, retreating into the bedroom to change.

“You should have invited yourself up, you know,” Niall adds on candidly once Bond remerges freshly showered and dressed down for the blessed few hours of sleep he’s more than earned. Bond looks wearily at his dragon who seems intent on abandoning all good sense tonight, choosing instead to be a devious pain in the arse. “It was going so well too, until you decided to not pay attention to all the signs and just drive off like the thick headed idiot you are.”

“Please tell me you weren’t actually spying on us.”

“ _We_ –“ says Niall smugly, “–were watching the both of you, but don’t worry. It was about as interesting as watching paint dry.”

“I should have known better than to trust you alone with Marie,” Bond mutters under his breath as he sits himself down on the floor, leaning back against the warmth of Niall’s side. “What are the both of you now, matchmakers? If I recall right, stopping by Vauxhall tonight instead of waiting until morning was your idea.”

“And it’s a damned good one, isn’t it?” Niall shifts, but not enough to jostle Bond around too much. “Don’t mind me, I’m just taking care of my investments.”

“Your…oh god.” Bond turns on his side, staring Niall down with a disbelieving look. “You can’t actually be taking that bet with Marie seriously.”

“What if I am? Just admit it already, James. Deep down in that frozen, black heart of yours, you secretly want to take it seriously as well.”

“I’m not admitting to anything at all, you thrice-damned reptile.” A choice poke in Niall’s side where Niall’s scales barely overlap has Niall grunting uncomfortably and Bond does it once more for good measure. “Are you really serious about trying to set me up with Q? Why the fuck are you even trying to do that for?”

“Have you even been _listening_ to anything I’ve been saying?” sighs Niall. “Of course we’re serious. Why wouldn’t we be? As half asleep as Marie was tonight, she did agree that you and Q would make a good couple. The both of you already spend so much time together as it is, and god knows you both already argue like one as well.”

Niall stops for a while to savour the look of incredulity on Bond’s face, enjoying every single second of it.

“Don’t even try to deny it,” he continues on blithely when Bond doesn’t look like he has an intelligent response on hand. “All arguing aside, I know you like talking to Q and Marie can vouch that Q enjoys your phone calls more than he lets up on as well, so the both of you should just man up and move things along.”

“Eavesdroppers,” Bond groans. “Both of you. Fucking eavesdroppers.”

“I like how you’re not even bothering to deny a single word I’ve said.”

“I don’t even know exactly what you’re trying to accuse me of!”

Niall bares his fangs at Bond in frustration, a low growl emerging from deep inside his throat.

“For a double-oh agent, you’re quite thick, aren’t you?”

This is Bond’s cue to get up and go to bed, clearly not awake enough to have this discussion right now.

“Good, run away from your feelings,” Niall calls to Bond’s retreating back and Bond just flips Niall the bird, turning the lights off to plunge the flat into darkness.

The absence of light doesn’t deter Niall from his mutterings though, and Bond drifts off to sleep that night hearing things like “emotionally stunted” and “wouldn’t know attraction even if it spat in your goddamn secret agent face” drifting in from the balcony.

 

* * *

 

“So did you talk to him?”

“Talk?” echoes Q, obviously too tired to hold up his end of whatever conversation Marie is attempting right now. “Talk to who?”

“James, of course.” The midnight flight must have woken her up a bit because right now, Marie is bundle of energy, trailing curiously after Q as Q moves around his flat.

“I…yes?” Q rummages through the pile of clothes on his floor, hoping for a clean pair of pyjama bottoms to show itself. “Was I not supposed to?” It’s a strange question for Marie to ask, but Q is somewhat sure that he’s heard stranger still from her at times.

“No, no, it’s good that you talked. What happened then?”

“What…happened?”

Annoyed at Q’s parroting instead of substantial answers, Marie blows out an exasperated puff of air.

“How did it go?” she tries again. “Did you like the talking?”

Q is thoroughly baffled now and he casts Marie a strange look before he disappears into the bathroom to change, hoping that this is all just a very inconvenient stress-induced hallucination and Marie won’t actually be insinuating what he thinks she is when he’s freshly dressed. Marie is waiting for him when Q walks out again though, having climbed onto his bed to fixate Q with a fed-up expression, which means that Q amazingly isn’t imagining all of this.

“Is there any reason why you’re asking me all of this?” he asks her as she scoots over to make room for him. Marie curls up into a small ball so that she won’t take up too much space.

“You’d find out if you stopped answering me with questions.” Marie bumps her nose against Q’s knee, as if physical contact will somehow jolt Q into giving her the answers she’s looking for. “I’m going to try one more time and then I’m going to sleep because you’re hopeless.”

She sighs and rests her head on a nearby pillow, staring intently at Q.

“Did you like talking to James more than usual since Niall and I weren’t around to listen in or interrupt?”

“Why would I…” Q trails off as the realisation dawns and the next time he glances at Marie, there’s a look of abject horror on his face. “Were you trying to give Bond and I _space_?”

“Don’t the both of you need it?” Marie asks innocently. “Because Niall was saying that–“

“Of course Niall would be in on this,” mutters Q under his breath.

“–since the both of you look like you could be a couple, we should give you space to talk to each other alone. We’ve been having a bet about this for a while now, and I really want to win it, so if you and James could just wait until maybe December to be an official couple, that would be very nice.” Marie considers Q’s shocked silence for a moment before adding a concerned “But then if it makes the both of you happier to announce it earlier, that’s okay with me too. We don’t have to wait until December.”

“I’m going to bed now,” is all Q can manage in reply and Marie hums happily, glad that Q hadn’t disagreed with her plans.

 

* * *

 

“Did it work?”

Niall blinks up at the smaller dragon that has clambered onto him, Marie settling into her usual spot just between Niall’s shoulder blades.

“I don’t know, actually,” Niall admits. “James didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t exactly seem…angry about the idea either, so I’m counting it as a win. How did Q take it?”

Marie makes a happy sound. “Quite good, I think. He wasn’t angry as well, but he did go right to bed after I told him.”

“Ah. Nothing beyond that?”

Marie pauses for a while to think, shifting on Niall before deciding that this is a conversation that’s best carried out on the ground. The flagstones of the courtyard are sun-warm when she spreads herself out on them and Marie shakes her wings out to sun them as well.

“Well,” she says slowly as she crosses her forelegs to rest her head on there. “He was in quite a good mood this morning? Whether that’s from the sleep or the fact that he got some time alone with James, I haven’t really been able to pinpoint though. How about James?”

Niall lets out a half-growl of discontent, Marie bumping her nose sympathetically against Niall’s side. “I wish I could say the same for that idiot,” he grumbles. “He’s been going around acting as if nothing happened last night and for all the flirting that he does with your Rider, right now I’m not sure if he even knows how to do things properly.”

“Don’t worry, Q is almost as bad as James in this, if not worse. They’ll muddle through it, somehow.”

“And take ten years to finally get together?” Niall sighs and shakes his head. “I can’t wait that long, sorry. Knowing them, they probably won’t even get together unless we push them together.”

Marie’s eyes are glinting a little when she scoots herself across a flagstone to lie at an angle with Niall, so that both their noses barely touch.

“Are we really?” she asks softly, as if there’s anyone around to overhear them. “Going to push them together, I mean.”

The bigger dragon stretches out to close the last few inches between them, bumping into Marie. “We are,” Niall whispers back conspiratorially. “I can’t guarantee that a lot actual pushing will be involved, but I think I might just know of a way to get them moving a little faster.”


	3. Chapter 3

_The dragon stood on the shore of the sea._   
**Revelation 13:1a**

 

**part three**

**INTERVIEWER:** –and here with us today, we have Rhys Hughes, National Action Party MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. Thank you, Rhys, for taking time out of your schedule to answer some of our questions today.

**HUGHES:** The pleasure is all mine, Sarah.

**INTERVIEWER:** Well then, straight into it, shall we? We know that your party has been pushing for a more hardliner stance when it comes to dragon permits and ownership. Given the recent murders and subsequent attacks we’ve been seeing, what’s your position on this? Are we, as a country, slated for new directions when it comes to dragon ownership?

**HUGHES:** That’s a very good question, Sarah, and before I go on, I’d just like to extend my deepest condolences to everyone who has been affected by these…terrible, honestly quite terrible events. Losing someone to an unprovoked attack is always hard to deal with, and on that note, it’s beginning to be quite obvious that more stringent measures need to be taken to ensure such attacks do not become the norm. The thing is, Sarah, we as a party don’t condemn those who choose to own dragons in London, but neither are we fully condoning it. You must understand that owning a dragon…well, it’s frankly almost the same as owning a gun.

**INTERVIEWER:** Except the gun is sentient, and weighs two, three hundred stone?

**[laughter]**

**HUGHES:** Well, maybe not physically the same, but I’m sure you understand my meaning. There’s a certain amount of responsibility that goes into being a Rider and dragons are dangerous in the way that guns are dangerous. In the same way you won’t allow a child near a loaded gun, you probably wouldn’t allow a child near an unsupervised dragon.

**INTERVIEWER:** So are you saying that dragons are a risk to society?

**HUGHES:** Not exactly, no. I’m saying that there is a potential for danger in them, and we have the responsibility to contain that danger the best way we can. Forgive me for going back to the gun illustration, but like how we require stringent control and screening for gun ownership, it’s probably for the best that we apply the same safety measures to dragons as well.

**INTERVIEWER:** And this is despite the 1999 Dragon Ownership Act already being in place.

**HUGHES:** Especially with the act in place. You see, what the act does is merely regulate _who_ can be granted ownership permits. Legal jurisdiction ends once the sale is completed and as of now, we practically have nothing resembling standardised regulations regarding dragon ownership. Are dragons checked up on by BIRD on a regular basis? Are their Riders? Is there anything being done to ensure dragons aren’t in environments that might provoke what we’ve seen happen in Helsinki, Naples and now Munich?

**INTERVIEWER:** Perhaps another question that has to be asked alongside all of that is: _should_ there be regular checks to begin with? But that’s probably a debate for a different day. Moving on from the subject of dragons–

 

* * *

 

“I don’t like him,” Marie sniffs when the interview cuts to a commercial break. “He sounds like a prick, and he’s a particularly ugly one at that. Something’s wrong with his face.”

It’s warm night tonight, by London standards and for once, Q is back home at a decent hour, Marie curled up in front of the couch to keep Q company while Q tries to while away the evening with a mindless hour vegetating in front of the television.

“His face isn’t the only thing that’s wrong with him,” adds Q laughingly. “He’s literally the worst person to have on-board as a political consultant when they’re building those massive new breeding grounds in Staffordshire, but that’s just how politicking works, I guess.”

Truth be told, Q had actually briefly considered Hughes on his personal list of potential people behind the murders, if only because something about the man always rubbed him the wrong way. For a short, hopeful moment, Hughes’ absence from the country had fit each case like a tailored glove, until further digging showed that while Hughes had indeed been hanging around Europe at the most inopportune times, he was also actually busy being a smug, condescending bastard at political functions instead of killing Riders. It just seemed like a double blow that he had to be so pug-faced _and_ have an airtight alibi.

Q switches channels before Hughes can come back on again, preferring to spend this rare moment of downtime watching something a little less upsetting. God knows Q’s already had enough of that at work lately, what with BIRD having come in to kick up a fuss about MI6’s involvement in the murder investigations

On top of that unnecessary pain in the arse, the last half of this week had also been a nonstop whirlwind of fact-compiling and cross-checks, Q having finally presented the religious connection between the murdered Riders to Mallory before Q had come home tonight.

Given the scant little that they have to build their profiles on, it seems unlikely that Mallory will veto a deeper investigation based on Q’s findings, but the potentially religious nature of the cases mean they’ll have to tread carefully from here on out, any implication that a religious group is behind all of this bound to send the country into a frantic panic and people like Hughes into the Parliament, demanding new dragon safety laws.

“Lets watch this,” Marie pipes up suddenly when Q lands on a channel showing what appears to be a travelogue, Marie looking up at the screen. The camera has panned out to show an island resort and Marie considers this with an interested hum in her throat.

“I didn’t know you liked islands,” comments Q, a bit curious at how Marie is acting.

“I don’t,” she admits and glances over her back at Q. “They’re too hot and too flat, but it’s just that Niall talks about the places he and James visits all the time and I want to see them too, even if some of them don’t sound fun to be at.”

Marie turns her attention back to the screen, head to one side as she watches intently.

“Is this what Santorini looks like?” she asks.

“Santorini probably has a lot more cliffs than this, but I think the weather should be around the same.”

“Cliffs,” sighs Marie. “Now that you mention it, Niall did mention the cliffs there. He said they’re nice to dive from, especially if there’s water at the bottom.”

Even though he knows he probably shouldn’t, Q can’t help but reach over for his tablet on the side table and pull up a quick search for seaside areas, one hand absently stroking Marie on the head as she watches the travel show in contented silence. In the almost-three years since Marie hatched, Q hasn’t even found the time to take Marie beyond the Greater London area, her tiny size making the usual flight routes impossible to attempt anyways.

Maybe it’d be good to take her somewhere. Q could rent a car and bundle her into the backseat for a day’s flight somewhere out of the city, take her to some cliffs.

“You know,” Q says after a few minutes of searching. “Dover is less than two hours from London, and they have some very nice cliffs there.”

There is stunned silence from Marie before she fixates Q with a longing stare, eyes wide and pleading.

“Dover?” she echoes hopefully. “Can we go?”

At this point, Q isn’t sure if he’ll even have enough time to sleep once Mallory starts them working the investigation from a religious angle, but then again, sleep is overrated when you own a dragon. Q purposefully puts the tablet away and sensing Q’s consideration, Marie jumps onto the couch next to him, as if sheer proximity will be able to force a yes out of Q.

“Can we really?” she asks again and Q has to bark out a fond laugh, finding himself with half a lapful of dragon when he does.

“No promises, but if nothing very big comes up soon, I might be able to clear one of my weekends and take you down to Dover, if you want to go see the cliffs that badly.”

“I do,” Marie says firmly.

“In that case I’ll see what I can do. No promises, okay?”

Marie nods, seriously, and Q spends the rest of his night watching travelogues with Marie crammed against his side.

 

* * *

 

Rush hour on the Tube isn’t something that can easily be described, Q only able to liken it somewhat to forty minutes of a claustrophobic hell filled with stale air, stepped-on shoes and the odd stranger or two clutching at him when the train bumps over a hitch in the tracks.

All in all, it’s an unpleasant experience that Q nonetheless goes through every morning, the commute from his flat to Vauxhall a necessary evil when Q can’t be bothered to spend an hour in traffic instead.

The 40 minute travel time means that Q has to be out of his door by 7:15 in the morning and today is no different, Q giving Marie a rushed pat on the head before he goes out, not even registering that Marie is strangely more awake than usual, the small dragon normally having rolled over and went back to sleep by the time Q reaches his front door.

What does register though, when Q makes it through the front of his building, is the sleek looking Audi parked by the road. Also, he unfortunately familiar-looking man leaning against it, his arms crossed loosely against his chest.

“Q,” Bond greets cheerfully. “Pleasant morning today, isn’t it?”

Q takes in the scene in front of him and finds that he can’t really come up with an explanation for it, Bond usually the kind of person to trudge into the office while off-mission at 2pm.

“Did something happen?” Q asks suspiciously. Maybe they had passed into a high security alert sometime during the night and all senior staff were to be assigned security details for the day, though Q still couldn’t explain why his would be Bond, of all people. “Is there any reason why you’re in front of my house at 7am?”

Bond lifts his shoulders in a casual shrug and this is when Q blearily notices that Bond is strangely dressed in clothes less formal than his usual office attire, a comfortable looking jacket and button-down shirt worn over dark jeans that have seen better days.

“No particular reason,” says Bond and he gestures at the car. “Just thought I’d give you a ride to work.”

“A ride to…work.” Q can feel his eyes narrow. “Right. Because that makes the pinnacle of sense right now.”

“It actually makes a bit more sense than the truth, so I think it was at least worth a shot.”

Warning bells have already started going off in Q’s head and he wonders if he should turn around and walk back in to wait for Bond to leave, but then that would mean getting caught in the worst of the rush hour crush.

The two choices left to him are hardly palatable.

“The truth being?” Q finally makes himself ask, too weary for 7:17am.

“The truth being that I’m under strict orders to get you into my car, drive us both to Dover and meet up with our two conspiring dragons there or risk never seeing my house keys again.”

Bond pauses then, giving Q some time to digest this string of information and Bond brushes invisible lint off his jacket while he waits, looking for all the world like getting blackmailed by his dragon is a common and daily occurrence.

“Well?” he prompts when Q doesn’t answer. “Am I getting my house keys back or am I not? I could probably break in if I wanted to, but it’s too much of a hassle, and I’ve already gone through the trouble of calling in sick on your behalf for today.”

“You _what_?”

Another shrug and Q honestly doesn’t know what to do anymore, the understanding look on Bond’s face a sign that Bond must have gone through an almost similar situation earlier.

“Don’t strain yourself too hard thinking about it, Q. It’ll make a bit of sense with time.” Bond walks around his car to open the door to the passenger seat, inclining with his head that Q should get in instead of gaping on the sidewalk.

“I even bought us bagels on the way here,” he adds helpfully.

Q tells himself later that he does it for the bagels.

 

* * *

 

The drive to Dover is unexpectedly pleasant, Q taking Bond’s advice for once and trying not to think too hard about the situation he’s currently in. They actually see Niall and Marie perched on top of one the buildings lining Old Brompton Road when they stop for a traffic light there and Marie lifts a foreleg at their car in cheeky greeting, Bond making a rude gesture at Niall before they turn onto Redcliffe Gardens.

“Bloody dragons,” Bond mutters under his breath. “Did you know this isn’t the first time he’s done this? He left my keys on top of the Royal Marsden Hospital last year when he wanted me to take him back to Glen Coe for some flight time around there.”

“Makes you wonder where he learns that sort of deviousness from,” Q wonders aloud and takes another bite of his bagel.

Next to him, Bond grins.

“And I wonder whose dragon actually brought the idea of Dover up to mine,” he counters. “All those hours in the courtyard together…we should have known they’d end up conspiring at some point. Just be thankful it’s Dover and not somewhere in Brempton.”

They’re driving next to the Thames by now and all Q can think of at the moment is how after a few minutes in Bond’s car, listening to Bond’s spirited complaints about Niall, Q finds that he doesn’t mind too terribly about not being in the office today. Mallory’s go-ahead on Q’s proposal the week before meant that task teams have already been set up to sift through whatever information they can find on religiously affiliated, anti-dragon sentiments within England and the countries the murders had happened in, this being no small task when the two usually came together.

By extension, this also means Q spending a good deal of time sitting on his hands waiting for a lead to look into, the past four days having brought up nothing but a conviction that many stupid people existed in the world and that equally many needed to stop reading religious manuscripts on a purely literal level.

“Would it be terribly remiss of me to admit that this is the first time that Marie is probably leaving London?” They’ve just left Central London themselves, Bond taking them onto the A2 after stopping to buy coffee on the way. “I mean, I actually had been planning to get her away in a manner that involved less blackmail, but seeing that the outcome is still the same…”

Bond makes a scoffing sound at this, driving one handed while sipping at the coffee he’s holding onto in his other.

“Nothing like some blackmail to add some excitement to your plans, right? Niall did mention that Marie wanted to go see the cliffs at Dover, but he didn’t mention anything about me having to abduct you for it.”

“Comfortable abduction at least, this one.” Q toasts Bond with his paper cup of surprisingly half-decent tea. “Comes with complimentary food.”

There’s a slight lull in the conversation and Bond eases the car into an upcoming exit, mindful of Q taking a careful sip of Earl Grey beside him.

“Do you think this has anything to do with whatever hare-brained bet that they’ve been going on about?” Q starts up again when the cup is back safely into its holder between the both of them. “Or did Niall not mention that to you, in which case, you can forget that I even said anything about it.”

“What bet?” Bond fakes, just to gauge Q’s reaction and Q looks unperturbed, calmly looking out the window at the passing countryside. “He didn’t tell me about any bet.”

“It’s nothing, just a game they’ve been playing with each other.” Q actually looks sheepish for having brought it up, Bond filing this reaction away for further contemplation at a later time. “I don’t even know the details.”

Bond makes an ambiguous sound at this and Q, to his credit, doesn’t stray back to the topic again.

 

* * *

 

Niall and Marie are waiting for them when they reach the cliffs, Q getting out of the car to stare his dragon down while a short distance away, Bond and Niall are getting into the beginnings of what sounds like a strongly worded conversation.

“Explain yourself,” he says to Marie who doesn’t look guilty in the slightest, even going as far as to preen a little in front of Q.

“There’s not much explaining to do,” she crows and now slightly distracted by the wide, blue expanse of the English Channel behind her, Q isn’t even sure whether he’s actually angry at her to begin with. Off-record, Q isn’t sure of a lot of things today. “You did say you’d take me to Dover if you had the time so when I mentioned it to Niall, he said he’d make the time for you.”

“And that somehow involves bringing Bond into this?”

There’s a devious look in Marie’s eyes that doesn’t quite match the innocent air she’s trying to exude.

“I wanted Niall to come to Dover with me to teach me diving and Niall doesn’t really go anywhere without James, so it’s only natural that he comes,” she says in an explanatory tone.

“Niall flew all the way here with you,” Q points out without missing a beat. “Bond wasn’t there during then.”

“Of course he wasn’t,” huffs Marie, as if this is the most obvious thing in the word. “Why would he be when he was with _you_?”

Abruptly, that’s all the conversation that Q gets out of Marie before she lifts herself into the air, flying over to go meet up with Niall who also seems to have left his own Rider mid-conversation.

“I try to raise her well and this is what she does to me,” says Q bewilderedly when Bond walks over to join him where he stands. Both their dragons are already making for the cliffs’ edges, probably congratulating themselves for turning both their Riders’ days upside down. “This. Cavorting off to the seaside without even a proper reason.”

“She’s still young, that’s reason enough. Niall on the other hand…” Bond sighs, resigned. “I didn’t even try to raise him well, but he’s almost as old as I am.”

“And that means he should know better? Pot, meet kettle.”

Since they can’t spend the whole day standing around the parking lot bemoaning the attitude of their respective dragons, Bond sets off towards one of the walking trails, Q following after since there’s nothing better for them to do here anyways.

Midweek and end-season, the paths empty except for them and Q can only silently bless the fact that both Niall and Marie had agreed on a clear day for their mastermind plan. As if Q picking his way awkwardly through long grass while clearly overdressed for such an excursion isn’t bad enough, the last thing he needs is the judging stares of other, more serious hikers.

Marie and Niall have found a spot not far from the trail they’re on and Marie flies over to urge them there, warnings about not leaving designated paths be damned when it’s clearly no fun to dive off cliff tops without anyone to appreciate it.

“The sides of the cliffs are white,” she tells Q excitedly when they finally stop at a small, grassy, knoll just shy of the edge. Next to her, Niall thumps his tail on the ground in agreement. “And if you glide out far enough, you can dive into the water.”

For a second, Q looks like he’s going to protest the idea of Marie actually throwing herself off a cliff and into the sea, but Niall beats him to it, a calm “It’s not dangerous, unless you’re afraid of the cold,” that has Marie nodding along enthusiastically.

“It’s not,” she insists. “It’s just water, and we’ll stay clear of the rocks.”

Bond, responsible Rider that he is, only blinks when Q looks to him for advice.

“I’ve let Niall dive like that before and he’s still in one piece, more or less,” he says in place of real advice and Niall bares his teeth at Bond for the last comment, Bond ignoring him to go lie down on the grass. “But you needn’t worry too much about them. They do have wings for a reason, after all.”

Q still looks unconvinced when he sits next to Bond, but the pouting look that Marie gives him has Q waving her off in the end, a called out “Be careful” that she acknowledges with a flick of her tail before she takes a running leap off the edge, Niall racing after her to fling himself off as well.

“If it’s any comfort, Niall will take care of her,” Bond offers in consolation when he finds Q still trying to catch a glimpse of his dragon, back ramrod straight as he looks for her red amongst the waves. “For all his antics, he can be careful when he wants to be and he knows how to look after Marie.”

“This coming from someone whose definition of ‘safe’ is ‘not dead,’ I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced.” Q does let his shoulders slouch a little though, posture relaxing as he abandons his vigil bit by bit.

The morning passes leisurely, Marie sometimes flying back to show Q an interesting shell she had found by the rocks while Niall purposely shakes the water out of his wings over Bond, Bond needing to punch Niall lightly in side to make him stop.

By midmorning, Bond has to take his jacket off to let it dry and Q has an assortment of strange trinkets from Marie scattered in front of him, the both of them meeting each others eyes over a drying patch of seaweed before the absurdity of the whole situation hits them and they laugh, Q flopping onto the grass to catch his breath.

“Seaweed,” he breathes out. “She got us all the way out here to show me _seaweed_.”

“Don’t forget the dry-cleaning bill I’ll have to foot as a result of this as well.” Bond has his head pillowed on linked hands, staring up at the sky and thankfully quite oblivious to how Q is glancing over at him with a smile still lingering on his face. At some point in the morning, Bond has rolled his shirtsleeves up. “You have to admit though, this beats going into the office anytime.”

“Oh please,” Q snorts and looks away before he can make a fool of himself. “As if you even do anything when you come in.”

“But paperwork is _hard_ , Q” Bond lets a bit of a whine into his voice, Q inwardly rolling his eyes at it. “And _boring_.”

“It’s only hard because you let it pile up and then when Mallory wants it filed, you have a backlog of five months to clear.”

“Did you hear me mentioning the boring part? The part where you chain yourself to your desk and fill in tiny little boxes with the same information over and over again until your wrist cramps up?”

“I would have assumed you do enough...wrist exercises to stop that from happening,” says Q before he can stop himself and Bond barks out a laugh, making an obscene gesture back at Q in reply.

“So that’s what goes through that filthy mind of yours when you do paperwork. God, I’m never going to look at a claims form the same way again, aren’t I?”

“That’s assuming you even ever look at it to begin with,” Q answers back accusingly. “And here’s the thing, Bond: when you’re branch head, you get to hire people to do your paperwork _for_ you.”

“Knew I should have paid more attention in computer class.” Bond rolls on his side, stretching so that his back arches in and the sound of grass rustling has Q looking over. “Or just classes in general, really,” he adds before going limp again, still lying on his side.

“Why, regret not taking the investment banker path now?” asks Q with no real intent other than to make idle conversation. He glances over at Bond and just over Bond’s shoulder, the Port of Dover is glinting white in the distance.

“I would have made Wall Street weep,” Bond declares heartily and Q rolls his eyes for real this time, going back to staring at the clouds overhead. The longer he avoids it, the more Bond’s gaze feels like a weight pressed against him.

“You already make our Finance department cry every few weeks, so don’t worry, you didn’t stray too far from the dream.”

“True. I’ve heard that Mallory has even been considering group therapy for them, the poor darlings.” The grass rustles again and when Q sneaks a second glance to his side, Bond has rolled onto his back once more, holding a blade of grass up to examine in detail. “But for the record? I think I’m glad I didn’t fuck off to a life of still slightly illegal, but considerably more boring endeavours.”

“Perks of being a double oh and all that?”

Bond brings the grass a little closer to his face. “Perks of being able to bring joy and sunshine into the dark fathoms of Q branch, more like,” he says easily and Q just snorts.

“You mean gnashing of teeth and abject misery, right? Must have gotten your vocabulary confused back there.”

“Told you I didn’t pay attention in classes. Besides–“ Bond turns the grass blade around, still studying it intently, “–who else would you practice your sarcasm on if I wasn’t around?”

“I wouldn’t need so much sarcasm if you weren’t around, so that’s a redundant question.”

“See, I always knew I make you a better person.” A short laugh and Bond flicks the grass he had been holding at Q and it lands on the lens of Q’s glasses. In violent response, Q tears up a handful of grass, throwing it at Bond in retaliation.

“Better person,” Bond insists loudly and Q is smiling faintly to himself when Bond brushes bits of grass off his shirt. “Admit it, I bring out the best in you.”

“Never.”

The corners of Q’s lips are still upturned when he says it though and when Q reaches up for his glasses to clean them, Bond ends up throwing a bunched up handkerchief at him.

“Grass stains,” Bond says simply and sure enough, Q’s hand is stained with crushed green when he holds it up.

“Thanks,” mumbles Q, suddenly acutely aware of how Bond must have been watching him to throw the handkerchief over in time. Or maybe Bond had just glanced over at the exact moment, suddenly deciding to atone for his many sins by playing the gentleman.

As before, Q isn’t sure about a lot of things today though, so Q pushes both thoughts to the back of his mind, quickly brushing the grass off his palm.

“Keep it,” Bond says lightly when Q starts to hand it back. “You might need it later on.”

“Is that you being generous or is that a warning?”

The only answer he gets from Bond comes in a shower of grass all over his hair.

 

* * *

 

Noontime has them trekking back to the visitor’s centre of the cliffs, Q self-consciously shaking bits of grass off himself while Bond bears his like proud battle scars, Q needing to brush the worst of it off Bond himself lest people get the wrong idea about what they’ve been doing on the trail. Bond, of course, smirks throughout the entire process.

“We could have been just coming in from a very hard and arduous trek,” Bond protests when Q picks out grass from the back of Bond’s shirt. “One that involves a lot of rolling about together on the ground, making–“

“There are _young children_ here,” hisses Q as a gaggle of primary-school aged students pass by them and Bond at least tries to behave himself a little more after that, only giving Q wide smiles whenever Q happens to meet his eye.

The loud school group in the foyer are the only other people they pass on the way to the cafe though, so once clear of them, Bond wastes no time in reverting back to himself, making choice double-entendres about treks and trails while Q tries to order lunch for the both of them without getting thrown out for being a public disturbance.

“I can’t take you out anywhere, can I?” moans Q once they leave a very amused cashier with packed lunches in hand.

“You haven’t even tried before this, so you shouldn’t pass judgement so fast. Besides, I’m not the one being taken out here when I was the one who technically kidnapped you. Or persuaded you.” Bond pulls a chocolate and beetroot brownie out of his paper bag to eye apprehensively before dropping it back in. “Can you kidnap the willing?”

“I didn’t exactly go willingly. There was blackmail involved–“

“And you did it out of the goodness of your heart because you couldn’t stand the thought of me being homeless?” Bond shakes his head reproachfully. “Poor form, Q. We need to work on your lying skills because I think I’m beginning to see why I’m the spy and you’re the quartermaster here.”

Q flips Bond off without breaking stride.

“Seeing how I don’t actually need them, I’m going have to politely decline on the lying classes, thank you. Also, what makes you think quartermasters don’t lie well? Isn’t a good lie one that you can’t detect?”

“Wait, so you mean the doodads you’ve been giving me don’t actually have five year warranties?” A look of mock disappointment crosses Bond’s face. “I’ve been living in a lie and it’s all your fault.”

“Ha, the MI6 field agent living in a lie. I’ll have to remember that one.”

The grass is warm when they sit back down on the small hill overlooking the sea, both Niall and Marie already waiting for them when they arrive.

“Niall is going to teach me how to fish later,” Marie proclaims proudly as she flits over to have a look at Q’s lunch. “He says he tried it while he was in Dalvík and it isn’t too hard to do, especially when the water here is warmer than how it was back there.”

“As long as you don’t bring me any live fish, go right on ahead.”

Q pulls out his prawn and mayo sandwich under Marie’s piercing scrutiny and when she doesn’t look away after the first half a minute, Q breaks off part of it for her, Marie plucking it daintily from his hand. Bond holds out part of his chicken-filled one for her as well and Marie takes it with a polite thank you, Niall grumbling loudly at Bond about being ignored.

“You can catch your own lunch, you giant brute,” Bond responds around a mouthful of food and he dodges a playful swipe from Niall, leaning back on one hand as his dragon growls at the missed chance. “Go fish something and eat that instead.”

“I’ll drop fish guts on your car, just you wait. And a few dead squid as well, if I can find them.”

“See this?” Bond asks as he turns to Q who’s quietly enjoying the show of solidarity between Rider and dragon. “This is what I put up with every day.”

Q, in turn, looks at Niall. “I’m sorry,” he says with feeling and Niall huffs out a laugh, dipping his head at Q in acknowledgement before he goes to gather Marie, the two of them making for the sea again.

“Dalvík was the place with the week’s worth of fish, wasn’t it?” Q asks once they’ve put the sandwich wrappings and paper bags aside, weighted down with a few stones to stop from being blown off by the breeze. “Niall mentioned it a while back, I think.”

At this, Bond looks up from where he had been studying the brownie from before, clearly surprised that Q still remembers.

“A long while back, actually. But yes, Dalvík was the place with the fish. We spent an entire, wretched week there, waiting to catch the mark alone while he was up skiing in the hills.” Bond pauses as he thinks back. “That around a month before you became quartermaster, actually.”

“Four years, then.”

“Three years nine months, but who’s counting?”

A grin and the brownie that Bond had been holding onto eventually gets unwrapped, Bond taking a small, tentative bite out of it before chewing with a thoughtful expression.

“Chocolate and beetroot, right?” Q waits for Bond’s nod before making a face at the combination, Bond going in for another, bigger bite as he does. “Who even comes _up_ with these things?”

“It’s actually not that bad,” Bond says deliberately. “You can’t even tell that there’s beetroot under all the chocolate.”

“Then why put it in to begin with?”

“Maybe to placate the weight-watchers? Make them feel as if they’re getting vegetables with dessert?” Bond holds the brownie out towards Q who actually recoils in horror. “Go on, try it. I swear on my grave, it doesn’t actually taste like beetroot.”

Q looks long and doubtfully enough at the baked good for Bond to waggle it at Q, moving it a little closer.

“Am I going to have to force-feed you?” he asks when Q still hasn’t made a move towards it. “Or would you prefer aeroplane noises and an invisible runway?”

Maybe it’s sheer hunger, or maybe it’s the curiously eager look on Bond’s face, but in a snap decision, Q leans forward and takes a quick bite, face colouring a little when he realises that he had practically let a double-oh agent feed him the most absurd brownie ingredient combination known to man.

Stranger things must have probably happened, but Q certainly doesn’t remember a single one of them now.

Bond at least, doesn’t seem to notice the implications this has for Q and has calmly withdrawn the brownie, a smug “Don’t come crying to me for more when you realise how good it tastes,” to accompany the action. He takes a meaningful bite to drive the point home.

“S’alright,” Q manages once he has swallowed. “I didn’t try to spit it out, so that’s something.”

To add strange on top of strange, seems to be one of those rare where Bond actually means what he says, the chocolate and beetroot admittedly tasting a lot better than Q had expected.

It’s still nowhere near good enough for Q to ask for more though and Bond unwraps more of the brownie for himself, making teasing remarks about Q’s apparent bourgeoisie tastes all the while.

 

* * *

 

It’s late afternoon when Marie and Niall consent to come back to dry land, Q being woken up by a wet nose pressed against his cheek and the sound of Bond laughing when Q flails his way to consciousness.

“ _Must_ you do while dripping?” Q demands at Marie who’s wet from head to tail, scales a shiny red from having been in the water for most of the day. Niall is purposefully making his way towards Bond’s mostly-dry jacket on the ground and Bond is shouting at him, increasingly violent warnings to stay away from it unless Niall wants to be fed rancid meat for the rest of the week.

“You wouldn’t wake up otherwise,” Marie says happily and Q sits up, running a hand through his hair to get it back into place. “James wanted to try getting Niall to shake himself dry over you after we went to wash the salt off in one of the streams, but Niall thought it was mean, so what I did is nothing compared to that.”

“Bless Niall,” Q breathes, thankful beyond belief. Bond, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to share the same sentiment at that moment, gesturing rudely and making loud threats at his dragon when Niall flies off with Bond’s jacket hooked on one claw. “He really should give Bond his jacket back though, since we’re going back now and I think Bond’s keys are in its’ pockets.”

“Oh?” Marie has a distracted look on her face. “Does he?”

She leaps back into the air when Bond starts to stalk towards Q, no doubt coming over to complain to Q about Niall being a nuisance yet again and this it the exact moment that has Q beginning to question the wisdom of allowing Marie to spend an entire day unsupervised with Niall.

“Wait, where are you–“ Q starts but it’s too late, Marie already climbing higher into the air and racing after Niall before Q can even finish his sentence.

Confused, he turns to Bond who’s watching Marie fly away with an unreadable look on his face.

“Would you care to explain to me why my dragon just abandoned me?” he asks. Bond has his lips pressed together in a thin line, which has Q knowing that the answer he’s going to get for his question won’t be a very agreeable one. “It has something to do with your jacket, doesn’t it?”

“Niall knows that my car keys are in my jacket,” says Bond in a flat tone and that’s when the understanding dawns, Q craning his neck to catch the last red flash of Marie’s back before she disappears behind a patch of trees.

“We’re…being held hostage here,” says Q, voice low with disbelief. The urge to either laugh or cry is growing stronger by the second. “By our dragons. Our goddamn _dragons_.”

Bond has jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, shirtsleeves rolled back down as cover against the slowly dropping temperatures. “Given how today started out, are you even surprised anymore?” he asks, a bit testily.

“I think I am, since there’s nothing else they can possibly want at the moment.”

“Are you completely sure about that?”

Bond is shifting his weight slowly from one foot to another and Q lifts an eyebrow at this, regarding Bond for a long while before he chooses to answer.

“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t be sure?” he asks carefully.

The look on Bond’s face isn’t exactly uncomfortable, per se, because Bond is the kind of person who can stare certain death in the face and still find himself smirking back at it, but right now, surrounded by quiet, picturesque scenery, the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs, Bond looks…uneasy, to say the least. And if that doesn’t scare Q, then Q clearly hasn’t known true terror before this.

“I lied about the bet,” Bond finally says when the silence between them has stretched out longer than it should have. “The one you brought up in the car while on the way here?”

Q nods at this and Bond takes it as a sign to go on.

“Niall told me about it while I was still in Santorini. I didn’t have anything to do with it though, honestly, and I sure as hell didn’t mean for any of my keys to get stolen.”

The last part comes out in a strange rush and Bond sounds almost borderline defensive, as if expecting Q to push him off the cliff’s edge for taking part or even hiding something like that. What Bond doesn’t know is that for a very brief moment, Q had considered throwing himself off the cliff instead.

More silence. A bit of awkward shuffling on Bond’s part, Q fishing around for the right words to say.

“So, if I’m understanding you right–“ says Q in testing, “–what you’re implying is that all of this–“ Q makes a vague gesture at their immediate surroundings, themselves included, “–happened and _is_ happening because our dragons were playing _matchmaker_ the whole time?”

“Yes?” The word tilts up into a shadow of a question and Bond sounds unsure when the word leaves his mouth. Q would taken a second to savour Bond’s reaction if he wasn’t too busy trying to keep his own under control.

“And by that extension, this means you know what it’ll take for you to get your keys back?”

“Yes.” This at least, Bond sounds confident of. “Niall actually told me that one straight out just now.”

Q thinks back to the expletives that Bond had shouted at his dragon when Niall probably broke the news to Bond and despite the utter absurdity of their situation, a small smile threatens to tug at the corner of his lips.

Bond getting _embarrassed_ , who would have known?

“I’m guessing it was bad enough for you to want to, and I paraphrase, ‘kill Niall and sell his hide to traders in China,’ was is?” Q prods, just for the heck of making Bond squirm and for once, Bond can’t think of a witty comeback on the spot.

Finally taking pity on the man, Q is starting to add a casual “But no, I understand, it’s–“ when Bond interrupts him midway.

“I didn’t think it was that bad, actually,” Bond says, quietly.

“You…what?” It’s not one of Q’s more intelligent responses today, but since Bond is already off his game, Q figures that no one can hold it against him.

“It was more about the jacket and how he’d probably tear a hole in it,” Bond admits before looking like he regrets the words ever leaving his mouth, but he carries on all the same. “Knowing him, he probably already has.”

“So the ransom that we’re being held for…”

At this, Bond’s regret shifts into something more like apprehension mixed in with a heady dose of uneasiness, Q watching this change with a great deal of confusion on his own part. If Bond had been embarrassed before, this was Bond looking like he was actively wishing for a hole in the ground to swallow him up.

“Q,” Bond says in a serious voice and Q’s brows furrow at the sound of it, the sudden change in tone throwing Q a little. “Before anything, I’m going to need you to answer this one question very truthfully, okay?”

“O...kay?”

The breath that Bond draws is a steadying one.

“How badly do you want to go home right now?”

“What?”

“Serious question, Q, I need a serious answer.”

“I…” Q flounders for a while, wondering if this is a trick question. “Quite badly, I think?” By now, Q is truly not comprehending what Bond is trying to do anymore and it must show on his face because Bond decides to accept this as a serious answer. “Bond what on earth are you–“

“I also need you to promise not to try and push me off the cliff at any given time after this.”

“God, you do know that you’re making this sound like our dragons just asked you to do something like summon Satan himself and sacrifice young children to him, right?” Bond’s unflinching gaze tells Q that Bond knows this in very exact terms and Q relents, a semi-incredulous “Okay, okay. I won’t add homicide to my list of sins already committed and try to push you off the cliff for whatever immense sin you think you’re going to commit.”

Of course, that’s when Bond chooses to step into Q’s personal space, Q’s eyes widening a fraction at the sudden movement.

“Bond–“ Q begins to say, but Bond is already tilting his head, leaning into those last few inches between them and there, suddenly, Bond has his lips against Q’s, a soft pressure that Q finds himself willingly pressing into.

It’s all over before Q can even properly process what has happened.

“Am I going to have to remind you that you did promise not to try and kill me?” Bond asks once he has drawn away, an echo of desperation behind the words and Q is bewildered for a second before their strange conversation from earlier resurfaces through the haze. “Because I–“

“If you apologise to me, I going to push you off the cliff,” Q says, his voice sounding a bit distant to himself. It’s almost like being detached, an out of body experience where Q has given up all neural control over his words. “I swear, I will actually push you off the cliff.”

“I’m…not sorry, then?” Bond tries and he’s still rooted to the spot in front of Q, still dangerously close enough to touch.

“Good.” Q can feel his head just starting to catch up with the rest of his body, but it looks like common sense won’t make it in time for what he’s about to do next. “Just wanted to make sure.”

It doesn’t take too much effort to reach out for Bond then, Q’s hand resting lightly on the top of Bond’s arm and Q kisses Bond back to the sound of excited dragon voices overhead, a familiar looking jacket falling out of the sky to flutter to the ground next to them.


	4. Chapter 4

_And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him._  
 **Revelation 12:9**

**part four  
**

 

 

* * *

 

Q is holding the flyer in one hand and poking listlessly at his plate of scrambled eggs with his other when the sudden press of Marie’s snout against the side of his knee startles him, Marie having wandered into the kitchen area when it became apparent that Q was inclined towards eating with his plate on a proper table top for once.

“What’s that?”

“Hmm?” The flyer is left alone for a while so Q can have one hand free to pat Marie absently on the head, Marie leaning into the touch like she always does. Her head only comes up to Q’s knee whenever Q sits on the precariously high stool at his kitchen counter and tonight, Marie rests her chin comfortably on Q’s flannel pyjama leg.

“That thing you were looking at,” Marie says. “I want to read the flyer too, if it’s making you look this serious during dinner.”

The kitchen counter is too high for Marie to properly read from so Q obligingly shows her the flyer at hip level instead, Marie’s head cocked to one side as she reads.

“Well,” she says after she has scanned the lines and Q has forced another forkful of egg into his mouth. “It’s a bit of a strange quote to put on a flyer, isn’t it? How can Babylon have no inhabitants if there are dragons there? Not that anyone would want to stay there to begin with, if it’s full of heaps and hissings and astonishments.”

Q can’t help but laugh at this, the sound of it making Marie even more curious than ever since now it’s clear that there’s something she obviously isn’t understanding about the flyer.

“Is it supposed to be a funny quote?” she asks and Q folds the flyer away, patting Marie fondly on the head.

“No, it’s actually written with the intention of it being very serious one, but sometimes, when different people read it, it can sound a bit funny all the same.”

Marie mulls on this shortly before deciding to accept it, barrelling on to her next question.

“So what _does_ religion have to say about dragons that’s so serious?”

Perhaps Q should have expected this from the get-go since this _is_ Marie asking the questions, but it still makes Q pause, Q laying his fork down onto his plate as he considers exactly how carefully he should words his answers.

“It’s a bit complicated,” Q says slowly at last. “Since quite a few religions have things to say about dragons, it’s quite a mixed bag. It’s hard to say for sure because some people are a bit more opinionated than others.”

From the unsatisfied look on Marie’s face, this clearly isn’t the answer she had been hoping for and Q knows it too, turning casually back to his lacklustre excuse for a dinner before Marie can badger him too much about a topic he doesn’t want to bring up with her just yet. Or ever, come to think about it.

It’s pointless to shelter Marie from the more upsetting aspects of life when the perimeters of Q’s job gets taken into consideration, but that still doesn’t stop Q from trying to sidestep potentially uncomfortable issues with her all the same. Young dragons are trusting by nature and while Marie is certainly intelligent enough to fully understand that not everyone has her best interests at heart, there’s always the danger that theory won’t translate well into action.

“Maybe you should try going for this talk thing,” Marie says right when Q thinks she has miraculously dropped the topic. “It might be good to have a look at these opinions, especially if they’re as complicated as you say.”

Q takes another glance at the flyer on the table, considering the suggestion. The Order of St. George had been one of the organisations that came up on MI6’s watch list during the initial investigations, but so had fifty or so other groups, each almost indistinguishable from the other. From what Q could remember from the reports given to him though, the Order didn’t seem to be known for having any particularly hardliner stances and they seemed more like a support group of sorts, brought together through the common thread of dissatisfaction over dragon-related incidents. Needless to say, The Order had been put low on the list of potential threats.

“Well are you going?” Marie asks again, breaking through Q’s musing. “It’s a bit far, but it does sound interesting.” She sits on the kitchen floor to nose at an itch just behind one wing joint. “Besides, aren’t you working on something like this at work as well? Maybe you going to one of the meetings might help.”

“You just want to know what they do in those meetings, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” comes the sheepish admission. Q slides off the stool with his plate in hand, Marie following him to the sink. “But you can’t deny that it’ll still be helpful. The people there might know something about what’s been happening lately, or at least you’ll find out how they feel about it.”

Phrased this way, Marie’s suggestion doesn’t seem without merit and Q scrubs absently at a grease stain while he mulls it over. Ideally, they’d send a field agent in for a hands-on job like this, but given how most operatives have been temporarily scattered to play guard dog for important Riders staying overseas, Q doesn’t think Mallory will willingly spare their thinned out ranks for a mostly pointless job.

“I’ll think about it,” Q finally says and Marie butts her head against Q’s leg in response.

 

* * *

 

“You’re going to an anti-dragon meeting,” Bond says flatly when Q calls him in Rome, Bond assigned there to babysit a higher-up and her dragon in the British embassy. “You. A Rider.”

“I think in some parts of the world, they call it infiltration,” Q retorts, Bond’s objections hardly a deterrent when he’s already more than halfway to South Woodford. “And if you read the flyer I sent to you, you’d know it’s not actually an anti-dragon meeting of any sort. Just…”

“A gathering of religious nut-cases?”

Q makes a tsk-ing sound of disapproval, glad that the street he’s walking on is empty enough for him to make these noises and not get stared at. “Rude, Bond. We say devout nowadays.”

“Only because it’ll make them less likely to claim blasphemy and try to burn us heathens at stake.”

“These are modern times, no one actually does witch burnings anymore.”

“But they still do assassinations in broad daylight?”

“Half point to you for that.” Q looks up at a street sign and considers the intersection in front of him. “But we still don’t have any proof that they’re actually behind all of it. There’s no clear motive, Bond, and the only thing they’ve actually achieved so far is send international dragon carriers into a sale frenzy.”

“Maybe getting Riders back here _is_ the motive.”

“Maybe,” agrees Q, absently. This had been a popular point of contention during the meetings Mallory had called, most arguments about it fizzling out when people realised that at this point, anything about motive was pure speculation at best. “But what then? If I hated dragons or Riders, I’d rather have them as far away from me as possible, not cramming themselves back into the country.”

“True.” On Bond’s side of the phone, Q can hear the clink of glasses. “Something about this whole thing still isn’t sitting right with me though.”

“Come join the party, we have matching shirts and everything.”

Q turns down the road on his left and the community hall where the meeting is supposed to be at is looming up ahead, a dark three-storey shape set amongst neatly-trimmed stress. On either sides, the number of cars parked along the road is increasing as Q walks nearer still.

“I’ll call you if I find out anything worth reporting back,” Q says when he’s within throwing distance of the hall.

“Call me even if you don’t.”

“Why, you want to make sure I didn’t accidentally get sacrificed on an altar?” The front doors are open wide, warm light and the faint sound of voices drifting out from the inside.

“And Niall calls me emotionally stunted,” mutters Bond, just loud enough for Q to hear. “Yes, you prick, I want you to call me because I actually care about whether you make it out of that meeting alive. Also, they have a penchant for sacrificing virgins, so forgive me if I get a bit worried.”

“Fuck off, Bond,” Q laughs. “And okay, fine, I’ll try to remember to call when it’s over.”

“Remember not to do anything dangerous and stupid,” warns Bond unnecessarily. “And to run away if any of the bad people try to convert you. Or shoot them. Either works.”

“Who do you think I am? You? Hanging up now, by the way, this looks like the kind of place they’ll kick you out of for being on your mobile.”

“ _Ciao, caro,_ ” Bond purrs in reply, Italian butchered, and Q allows himself a soft smile before he ends the call.

 

* * *

 

 **ciao**  
 _ˈtʃao_  
interjection

1\. hi, hello  
2\. bye, goodbye

 

* * *

 

The hall is already half filled when Q slips in through the back, people bunching together in loose groups around rows of plastic chairs as they wait, most of them with paper cups in hand.

“First time here?” someone asks him when Q finds a spot to sit down and Q fixes a smile onto his face, turning around to meet the speaker who appears to be a slight, easy-going looking Asian woman.

“That obvious, eh?” he jokes, the woman laughing.

“Don’t worry, we don’t hurt the newcomers,” she says and Q finds himself being offered a paper cup that he accepts, the bittersweet smell of instant coffee rising from it. “We just ply them with hot beverages and the occasional tea cake or two. Deanna, by the way.”

“Andrew,” Q says with practiced ease and Deanna’s grip is firm when she shakes his hand, beaming at him all the while. It would be disconcerting if she didn’t quite look so sincere. “I wasn’t actually sure about coming tonight, but I got one of the Order’s flyers on the Tube and after a friend saw it, she thought it’d be a good idea that I try coming, so…” Q trails off, self-conscious. “Here I am, I guess?”

Deanna smiles, warm. “Good friend you have there. Does she come regularly?”

Biting back an involuntary smile of his own, Q waves the notion away with his hand. “No, not really,” he admits. “She’s actually as clueless as I am, just a good deal more outgoing when it comes to things like these. Something came up on her end at the last minute tonight though and I didn’t think it’d be worth waiting another half month to come, so that’s why I’m here on my lonesome.”

Deanna makes an understanding sound and Q has to spare a moment to wonder how amused Marie is going to be when he tells her about this particular encounter later.

“I think it’s great that you managed to come all the same. We’ve been getting a lot more people in the past few months, so you don’t have to worry about being the only newbie.” Deanna’s smile hasn’t stopped since she came up to Q. “If there’s anything at all you want to know about us, just come over and ask, alright? I know the press has been a bit speculative lately, so it’s only natural that people have questions.”

Q nods in agreement, taking a sip of over-sweetened coffee.

“I’ll be speaking later as well,” she adds. “So hopefully that’ll clear a few things up for you.”

“Sounds good, I’ll definitely be looking forward to it.”

This has Deanna patting Q’s arm in a friendly way before she excuses herself to go prepare and Q graciously lets her go with a word of thanks for her hospitality, waiting until she’s gone before he pulls out his mobile to send a quick text.

 _Cause of death: diabetes_ he types and Bond just replies with a curt _deity of choice help us all_.

 

* * *

 

**Deanna Trần**

It might sound strange to a lot of people now, but I grew up in a household with dragons. My parents were Riders before they married and they had actually met while on the same flight route to the city, so after they had me, it didn’t make sense for them to give up flying in any way, even if it meant leaving me with a sitter on the weekends while they went out into the country.

I didn’t mind though, back then. I would even go as far as to say that things were good, maybe great for a child my age. My mother had Linh, a Plein Vite, and my father had Cadeo, a Chasseur Vocifere who had been with him for almost thirty years, the both of them almost as inseparable as my mother and Linh had been.

The year I turned seven, Cadeo fell sick. Things started to not be so good from then on and my parents had to take out loan after loan from the bank to keep up with the payments for his treatments. In the end, it didn’t too much difference and by the time the schooling year started, Cadeo died. My father was devastated, as expected, but what all of us didn’t expect at that time was just how bad it got for him to see my mother still have Linh around. I think he tried at first. Tried not to notice when my mother went flying with Linh and tried not to ask her where she had been or what she had been doing when she went out for hours at a time.

Then came a point in time where he…just stopped trying, I guess. They got into fights all the time, usually over Linh or the debt that we were in, which just led the whole thing back to Cadeo. Can you imagine it? Being eight years old and watching your family fall apart because of one dead dragon? My father moved out just before my ninth birthday and the day he did, my mother went flying with Linh over the bay in Rye.

Until now, I’m not even sure if she had jumped or just fallen off by accident, but whatever it was, Linh went down right with her and they didn’t find the bodies until three days later. By then, my father had come back, of course, but it wasn’t the same. We weren’t the same people anymore, and for a long time, I was angry at how things had turned out for us all because of one dragon. Growing up in debt with a father who was almost sober on his best days, I couldn’t help but start asking why it had to be like this. Why my parents? Why me? Was it because they were Riders and I was the daughter of one? If Cadeo hadn’t been in the picture, or even Linh for that matter, things would have turned out so different.

I spent a lot of years carrying that sort of resentment around and it wasn’t until I was in university that things began to make a bit more sense. Someone had given me a book in second year and in it, there was this line that kept standing out to me. Basically what it said was that things would work out for those who love god and for those who are called according to his purpose, and at that time, this seemed to make more sense than anything the counsellors or therapists where telling me. People couldn’t tell me what the answer was when I kept asking why this had to happen, but now I knew.

In the same book, there’s also another line that I think most of you will be familiar with by now. _And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him._

I’m not a person who’s too big on the whole word association thing, but sometimes, the parallels are just too strong to ignore. My parents had been good people, but it was clear now, that their dragons weren’t. For most of their lives, my parents had spent every single day with their dragons, years and years of influence that finally accumulated into what my childhood had been. Cadeo and Linh might have never tried to physically hurt anyone, but the lies they had embedded in my parents were damaging enough.

Thankfully, I’ve seen the truth for what it is now. It’s not a comfortable truth to live with, knowing that we walk beside creatures like this, accepting them as friends and even family, but the truth usually hurts, doesn’t it? We are a generation of people who have become so complacent with this unnatural invasion into our lives that even when evidence is presented in front of us, we choose to hide behind the veneer of things like political correctness and dragon rights instead. The ones that do stand up for what is pure and right get shunted out, called anti-dragon. I should know. I've born the label and today, I bear it proudly.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to share my story with you because I want to blame anyone and condemn the choices you, or your friends and family might have made. I’m up here because after going through all those wasted years of wondering and not understanding why, I know how much a blessing it is to finally find an explanation. A purpose, even, one that I've been privileged enough to carry into my workplace. In closing, I can only hope that what I’ve gone through will serve as an example, or even a conviction for those of you who have your doubts. The way is long and narrow, but together, through sharings and meetings like this, we can be a comfort for those who are struggling with the same questions that I once had inside of me.

Thank you.

 

* * *

 

“Crucify any small, furry animals tonight?” Bond asks drily when Q calls him on the way back, Q needing some sort of auditory stimuli to stay awake on the bus ride back home. “Or did you dance around a ring of dragon bones and chant a few stanzas in pig-Latin?”

“Ha bloody ha,” Q says with little humour. “None of the above, but I did drink two cups of instant coffee, so I still deserve an award for outstanding valour in the face of non-dairy creamers.”

“It was _that_ bad?” A dramatic gasp comes across the line and Q bites the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing aloud. “Hold on, let me call my personal coffee supplier to see if they can arrange for an exorcism.”

“Hang up now and you won’t live to do it again,” Q warns because he really can’t afford to wake up on the other side of London and he can practically hear the sound of Bond’s smirk from over a thousand kilometres away.

“I vaguely recall someone kicking up a fuss when I asked that certain someone to call me back, but now–“

“But now having you on the phone is actually useful,” finishes Q. The bus bumps over a pothole in the road and Q winces, glad that he hadn’t been asleep.

“I’ve had less abusive relationships with people who want me dead.”

“Why do you always assume I’m not one of those people?” sighs Q before something from Bond’s earlier reply gives him pause. “Wait,” he says. “Are we in a relationship?”

“We could be,” Bond says, deceptively light after a pause of his own. There’s the sound of something being shifted on Bond’s end of the line, Bond probably switching his mobile to his other hand. “Does it still count as a relationship when one party gives the other party dangerous items to go kill people with?”

“Not for normal people, no.”

“Well my mother always did tell me I was special.”

“And I’m sure she meant that in the nicest way possible,” says Q sweetly. Through all their sniping and snarking, they seem to have strayed from their original point of conversation as usual, but for once, Q doesn’t try to nudge it back in line.

“The meeting wasn’t a complete waste of time, by the way,” he says instead to clumsily change the topic. “I think we can safely rule out the Order from our list of potentials.”

“Why? Did everyone just sit around drinking coffee and singing Kumbaya?”

Q makes an amused face at his mobile, though he knows Bond can’t see. “You have a very odd perception of what happens during quasi-religious meetings, Bond.”

“I was raised a godless heathen, what can I say? But in all seriousness, are you sure? You know how these things usually work. It’s not like they openly sit around, twirling their moustaches as they talk loudly about their plans to force the kingdom of god onto earth through nuclear warfare.”

“True,” Q concedes. “It was an open-to-public meeting after all, so they might have toned it down a little. Just a few people going up to talk about the inherently evil nature of dragons, actually.”

“So no moustaches?”

“A few, but they weren’t the dastardly kind.” The bus has come to a stop in front of Q’s Tube station and Q nods at the bus driver on his way down, idling on the street for a while before he has to go underground and lose mobile reception. “It was a mixed bag tonight, but there were a surprising amount of uni students and the like. A younger crowd than you would have expected.”

“It’s the kids you have to watch out for these days.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re old and they intimidate you.”

“I can operate most firearms known to mankind _and_ own a two tonne, combat trained dragon to boot, so we’ll see who’s more intimidated at the end of the day.”

Q waves past a cab who slows down inquiringly, quite aware that he shouldn’t be standing around street corners at this time of the night.

“Sorry,” Q says. “Could you speak up? I’m afraid I couldn’t hear you over the sound of your massive, throbbing need to overcompensate.”

“Hah, say _throb_ one more time,” leers Bond gleefully and Q takes this as his cue to finally go catch his train.

“You are an infant and I’m done talking to you,” he says, voice purposely prim as he starts down the stairs of the station, heading for the platforms. “Also, I’m getting on the Tube now, so I won’t have to endure your schoolboy antics anymore.”

“ _Don’t call me_ , he says at first.” Bond has pitched his voice an octave and a half higher than what Q’s usually sounds like, Q wrinkling his nose at the inaccuracy. “Then it’s _don’t hang up on me, Bond, I’ll kill you in your sleep if you do_. Now, it’s–“

“Now it’s I have a legitimate reason because even I can’t force a normal mobile reception underground.” As if to lend weight to his sentence, the sounds of an oncoming train are starting to blow through the tunnels, Q quickening looking expectantly at the tracks.

“You could always appropriate branch technology for it,” Bond suggests. “No, wait, I know what you’re going to say next: I’m not you, Bond. I’m not devilishly good looking enough to be you anyways.”

“That’s the most contradictory statement I’ve ever had the displeasure to hear in my entire life.”

The train has just pulled smoothly into the station and Bond is still laughing when Q makes for the doors.

“Train’s here,” Q says, as if the sound of it arriving wasn’t already loud enough over the phone. “Goodnight, Bond. Sleep well with those delusions of yours.”

“Not as well as I would with you, _caro_ ,” Bond murmurs, just to hear Q splutter and the line cuts off.

 

* * *

 

 **caro**  
 _’karo_  
adjective, male

1\. darling, beloved, dear  
2\. important, precious

 

* * *

 

September crawls past its first quarter and the temperature dips, Q needing to switch his current jacket out for a thicker one whenever he leaves the house. Autumn isn’t a season that he enjoys much, the increasingly cold and wet weather a horrible combination if any, but Marie, like most dragons up in the Northern hemisphere, adores the cold, having learnt over time to even use it to her advantage.

For example, Marie knows for a fact that her scales can get devastatingly cold to touch when it’s early in the morning and on the day that Bond is due back in London after a two week stint away, Marie burrows into Q’s bed at 5:30am, pressing up against Q until he wakes up with a startled yell.

“Wake _up_ ,” she insists and Q has to actively tamp down on the urge to shout at her for waking him up one entire hour before his usual time. “James and Niall are coming back today, so we need to and get ready.”

“Get ready for what, exactly?” Q has shoved his head under his pillow, blearily wondering if his dragon will somehow take the hint and leave him to go back to sleep in peace.

Marie obviously has other plans though, this being evident when she bites at the blanket that Q has wrapped himself in and tugs it off the bed, almost tipping Q off his mattress in the process.

“They’ll be coming in early today because their flight is early,” she insists and Q has to get up now, like it or not, Marie having conveniently parked herself on Q’s only source of warmth. “You haven’t seen James in over two weeks, so don’t you want to see him now?”

“I didn’t see him for two months when he went to Bolivia,” grumbles Q in reply from under his pillow. For a while, the option of trying to stay in bed and risk waking up frozen later seems like an attractive one, but Marie is as persistent as she is stubborn, so Q can only yelp when she drapes herself on top of him.

“Get up,” she says again, bouncing a little on Q for good measure, her tail thwacking painfully against Q’s leg. “We’re going to meet them and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Don’t I even get a say in when I want to go in for work these days?”

“No,” Marie chirps and Q sighs, patting her side.

“Okay then. Get off so I can get up, it’s not like I can go back to sleep again after this.”

 

* * *

 

“Niall, it’s six in the fucking morning and I just got off a flight so will you please, just give me back my fucking bags?”

“No,” Niall says shortly and Bond doesn’t even know how to argue with his dragon anymore, at a complete loss as to why Niall is acting this way. If Bond squints, he thinks he can see one of his bags sitting on the roof of a nearby low-rise block of flats. “You’re going to do your drop-offs first, and then we go home.”

“Oh for the love of…” Bond takes a good look at his dragon. “You’re actually serious about this, aren’t you? Am I going to walk into Q branch and see that Marie has somehow chained Q to his desk for the night?”

“I told her to use any mean necessary, but I don’t think it would have come to that.”

“You’re a meddling waste of oxygen, you know that?” Bond growls and pats his coat pocket for his wallet, glad that he at least had the good sense to keep his money on himself. “And no, I don’t want to hear a single thing about you and Marie protecting your investments or anything of that sort, okay?”

“I’ll meet you at Vauxhall with your things,” Niall says sweetly as Bond flags a cab down and Bond only glares at his dragon before getting in.

 

* * *

 

“You too?” Bond asks in greeting when Q walks into his branch at 7am and Q throws a pointed look at Marie who quickly scampers away, no doubt heading out to the courtyard to look for Niall. “Mine took my bags the moment I got off the plane. What did yours do this time?”

“Tried to kick me out of my own bed,” gripes Q as he goes over to where Bond is waiting by the returns table. Bond hands him a gun he didn’t even have to use while in Rome and Q takes it from him, checking it over before it goes into its case. “And when that didn’t work, she sat on me until I got up.”

“You made a brave attempt to resist, at least.”

“Thanks for noticing.” Earwigs and concealed weaponry comes next, Q sorting through those with experienced efficiency while Bond sits on the edge of the table, apparently waiting.

For what, exactly, Q doesn’t know. Since Bond hadn’t been outfitted with anything beyond the bare basics for this operation and everything is now back in Q’s hands, safely accounted for, Bond by all means should already be halfway out the door, not looking like he’s going to fall asleep on the table any moment.

“You can go home now, by the way,” Q says when he’s done. “Or ten minutes ago, actually.”

“And not make this trip worth my while?” Bond has pushed off from the table, going over to join Q where he stands. “Like hell.”

“I didn’t know that post-mission drop-offs had to be considered worthwhile before you agreed to them…” Q is starting to say in response, but he trails off at the end, suddenly aware of how Bond seems to be closer than he had been a few moments ago.

“I think–” says Bond slowly as he takes a step closer, “–the word you’re looking for is _coerced into_ , not _agreed_ , when it comes to post-mission drop-offs at 7 in the morning.” Bond has stopped right in front of Q and Q can feel the edge of the table pressed against his lower back, no where further for him to back away if Bond chose to move closer still. “As for what comes after though, that actually doesn’t need any form of coercion at all.”

“Oh?” says Q. “And what exactly comes after?”

“This.”

Bond leans in and Q, made brave through lack of sleep, meets him halfway, Q’s hands coming up to grip the edges of the table when Bond kisses him slow and languid, one hand cupping the curve of Q’s jaw.

“So,” Q says flippantly once Bond has drawn away. “Worth the 7am trip and lost luggage?”

“Not sure, might have to check again.”

Q laughs and Bond’s lips are soft when he kisses them again.

 

* * *

 

Post-Rome assignment, Bond and Niall spend hardly three days back home before Mallory sends them off again, this time to run point for the new Minister of State and Trade’s security team while she’s in France attending the Calais Trade Expo.

Marianne Browning is as polite and easy-going as they come, even apologetic for unnecessarily pulling Bond and Niall out of London, but for all of her amicability, Bond still finds it hard to view their French assignment as nothing more than an immense waste of time.

“Don’t you find it at least a bit refreshing to do something where we’re not in immediate danger for a change?” Niall counters when Bond voices his discontent at their current placement. They’re flying recon over the Expo’s venue in Calais the day before the event and from the air, Bond thinks that it looks like a secure enough location. Either that or Bond just can’t really be arsed enough to care at the moment. “Nice food, good wine, accommodating principal. I thought you’d be all over this one in a heartbeat.”

“I’d hardly call it refreshing when MI6 keeps insisting on using us to run point on the security teams of people who don’t actually need us here.” Bond makes an unsatisfied sound before he urges Niall to take a wider circuit, Niall banking towards the sea. “Bloody cheapskates. They could have just saddled the VIPs with people from private security instead of having us play babysitter like this. I’d rather be back in Kuala Lumpur finishing up the job there.”

“Double-oh six is still stuck there, isn’t he?” Niall lets out a low whuff of amusement. “Say what you want, but I’m actually glad that I’m not back there. Dev scares the living daylights out of me, and I’d honestly prefer to be running point here instead of working with her back there.”

“You just don’t like bossy, independent women.”

“I like Marie well enough, thank you. One per lifetime is already enough anyways.”

Niall brings them higher into the air before banking to his right, the new perimeter they’re circling giving Bond an uninterrupted view of the Channel on his side. It’s a clear enough day for the white cliffs of Dover to be barely visible from this altitude.

“You know,” Niall speaks up after they’ve been flying for a while. “I’m starting to have this sneaking suspicion that MI6’s bad agent-management isn’t the only reason why you’re angry at this assignment.”

Niall looks knowingly over his shoulder at Bond who has schooled his face into an impassive mask.

“You’re just angry because you didn’t get to spend enough time with your boyfriend, aren’t you?” he croons.

“He’s _not_ my boyfriend,” growls Bond in reply.

“Ah, too old for that are we? Maybe you prefer the term…man-friend? Oh, I know, _life partner_. That has a nice, domestic ring to it.”

Bond responds to Niall with a kick in the side, boots glancing off Niall’s scales without even leaving a mark as Niall huffs out a laugh.

“I actually like the term lovers too,” Niall continues to muse and Bond can feel his horror growing. “There’s that added dimension of passion to it, and don’t you like how the word just rolls off you tongue? _Lovers_ ,” he tries out slowly. “Yes, I think we’ll probably go with this one. I’ll have to tell Marie the moment we get back.”

“Do that and I will poison your meat, I swear.”

“Lovers,” rolls Niall again, bringing them easily back to the ground where Marianne is waiting for them. “Life partners. _Boyfriends_.”

“Fuck off and die,” hisses Bond in the few seconds before they land and whatever other insult Bond has planned beyond that will just have to be shelved for now, Marianne already walking over to greet them.

 

* * *

 

The reception is, as Bond had been expecting, an uneventful one. Most of the time, Bond spends shadowing Marianne around the hall while high above head, Niall keeps watch over the building perimeters and checks in on Cassius, Marianne’s sombre Jade who’s making polite small talk with the dragons of other dignitaries in an area of their own outside the main, glass walled venue.

“Report?” Bond murmurs into his concealed mouthpiece at the appointed check-in time and Niall’s voice is clear in his ear, his dragon sounding as bored as Bond feels.

“Absolutefuckinglutely nothing, as usual. You?”

“Nothing. I think the French Transport Minister is starting to get a little drunk though, so maybe the next hour or so won’t be so mind-numbing.”

“God, is that who he is?” The sound of wind interference from Niall’s side slows to nothing, Bond guessing that Niall has stopped to perch somewhere. “I’ve been seeing someone stumbling about from up here, but I didn’t know monsieur was a VIP. Isn’t 11am a bit early to go so heavy on the champagne, though?”

“It’s never too early for champagne,” Bond says absently and glances around just in time to catch a balding, tuxedoed man start to approach Marianne from across the room. “Also, if you can see him from where you are, I’ve got one person heading straight for Marianne, even though I’m guessing he’s just the nth person who wants to get Marianne’s opinion on freight weighs and shipping, not shoot her between the eyes. You have visual?”

“Got him. This is a really wild party, isn’t it?” drawls Niall and Bond smiles grimly to himself before he goes, moving along the sides of the hall to keep the man in sight.

As things turn out, the bald man doesn’t really want to know anything about freight rates or even anything remotely to do with trade after all, cornering Marianne instead to strike up an eager conversation about dragons that Bond can’t help but circle around to eavesdrop on.

“Did you hear, the news that just broke?” the man is saying and Marianne looks up politely, flute of champagne clutched in her hand.

“News? About what, Markus?”

Markus seems to be German and easily excitable, moving a little closer to Marianne even as he gestures discreetly towards the outdoor area where the dragons are mingling amongst themselves.

“I will assume that this is still too recent to have been broadcasted, but sources I have in London have been texting me all morning about something that has been happening in your city,” he says in a low voice. “A Rider murder, Marianne. They’ve killed another Rider.”

Marianne turns pale and Bond feels himself tense, listening a little closer as Markus rambles on about Camden and King’s Cross and what sounds like a fucking _body count_. It’s not much information to go on, but from the horror on Marianne’s face, it looks like she’s heard enough.

“Niall,” Bond says urgently when Markus has wandered away again, having patted a stunned Marianne on the top of her arm in a poor show of comfort.

“What? Is the French minister drunk already?”

“No, worse. There’s been a fourth murder.”

“ _What_? Where?” Niall’s voice is hard and Bond can see a flash of grey just at the corners of his vision as Niall alights on the ground near where the dragons are mingling. “Oh god, please don’t tell me in somewhere like–“

“It’s London,” Bond says before Niall can finish his sentence. “Camden, near King’s Cross.”

“Fuck,” murmurs Niall and Bond can’t help but give a minute nod of agreement at that sentiment. “King’s Cross, on a Monday morning. Rogue?”

“No idea, but I heard something that sounds like a body count, so it’s likely.”

Niall swears expressively at this and Bond waits until his dragon is done before he speaks up again.

“I’ll keep you posted on this, alright? Not that we’re going to get any proper information until this goddamn reception is over, but I’ll see if I can find out anything.”

“Good,” growls Niall and through the glass, Bond can see his dragon look straight at him. “First stop should be your principal though, she looks like she’s going to keel over any moment now from the news.”

 

* * *

 

Marianne is still pale when Bond approaches her, a questioning but quiet “Ma’am, is everything alright?” at her side. While Niall had been exaggerating a little about the keeling over part, Marianne does look shaken, and she takes a deep drink from the champagne flute in her hand before she answers.

“I suppose you overheard a bit of what we were talking about, didn’t you?” she asks Bond back instead and there’s a grim, humourless smile on her face. “I think I understand now, what they say about word traveling fast among Riders.”

“I didn’t mean to overhear it, ma’am–“ Bond is starting to say, but Marianne waves him off, face tired all of a sudden.

“No, no, none of that. It’s okay, actually. More than okay. At least I can talk about it to someone for now instead of pretending I give a shit about drinking the French budget dry and talking shipping routes while London is in chaos.” She regards Bond for a moment with a long look. “You have family in London, James? People you care about?”

The no that had been waiting on Bond’s tongue suddenly feels bitter by the end of Marianne’s question.

“No and yes,” he finally settles on. “I assume that you do, ma’am?”

“Husband and two children,” she says. “Riders, all of them.”

“Lucky family.”

“The way things are going to happen from here, I don’t think any Rider in London is going to be anywhere near lucky for the foreseeable future.”

Marianne takes another drink from her champagne flute before speaking again, voice harder than it had been a second ago.

“BIRD is going to come down hard on us, and god knows the NAP will try to use this to their advantage, somehow,” she says, voice low and angry.

For a while, the future implications of the newest murder and dragon attacks hang heavy between them, Bond feeling a sick clench start up in his chest whenever he lingers too long on what will happen over the next few days.

“James,” Marianne suddenly says and the low urgency in her voice snaps Bond out of his brooding. “I don’t suppose you have authority to declare some sort of security breach and get me out of here early, do you?”

When Bond looks at her, the champagne in her flute is all gone, Marianne’s face an unreadable mask. Bond allows himself a humourless smile.

“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am.”

 

* * *

 

You have _one_ new voicemail:

Bond, it’s Q. I know you probably haven’t heard anything about this, being in the middle of playing glorified babysitter and all that, but we got our fourth Rider murder less than half an hour ago, right in the middle of London. Camden, to be exact, and just next to Kings Cross too, of all the goddamn places.

They went for the Rider of an Ironwing this time around and…and it’s not good, Bond. Fuck, it’s not good at all. The body count hasn’t been finalised yet, but the Met reports I’m seeing are putting the numbers at sixteen dead, five children out of the lot.

[sigh]

They’re trying to hold the press back for as long as they can, try and clean the scene up before the public falls on it, but it’s no use when word has been spreading all over the Internet. The first hand accounts, the photos, the videos, it’s all fucking get uploaded as we speak and some of the discussions I’m seeing…I don’t even know what we should be preparing ourselves for, Bond. The public anger on this one isn’t like anything I’ve seen, especially over the children. MI5 just called to put us on joint alert as well, so I’m assuming I’m not the only one who has noticed.

Mallory is still in a meeting with the rest of the government heads, but the last I heard, there’s been talk of keeping all the security-assigned Riders where they are for now. Something about protecting national interests and the like, because clearly a few VIPs are more important than all the rest of the Riders trying to get out of London now without being lynched.

Call me back when you get this, okay? Mallory doesn’t like the way they’re planning handle things right now, but it’s not his call. You’ll probably already know where you need to be by the time you get this message anyways.

Just…whatever it is, call me back, yeah? And take care of yourself, you and Niall both.

I really wish you were here right now.

End voicemail. Dial _one_ to replay.

You have _zero_ new voicemails.

 

* * *

 

Q picks up before the first ring is even over, something tight in Bond’s chest unwinding a little when he hears Q’s voice on the phone.

“Bond?” Q is saying, voice clipped with stress. “Oh thank god, you’re still in Calais, aren’t you?”

“They’re grounding me here,” Bond growls. “Q, why the hell are they _grounding_ me?”

“If you could see the sort of clusterfuck that London is turning into right you, you’d get a rough idea why. Riders have been trying to get out of the city all morning, before things really turn to shit. There’s no way you’d be able to get in with your principal anyways.”

“Just watch me try,” Bond mutters.

“Bond–“

“None of the news channels are reporting anything beyond the same looped footage again and again, but you mentioned something about the public, MI5 going on high alert and all that.” Bond paces the long corridor outside Marianne’s hotel room where she’s making her own, worried phone calls. “Are we looking at protests and the like coming up? You and Marie are safe, right?”

“Maybe, and yes, we are for now, no one is going be stupid enough to try and storm the SIS building.”

On his end of the line, Q breaks off for a moment to snap a few curt answers at one of his own staff, this followed by a loud spate of swearing from Q in the background before he picks up the phone again.

“Look, I need to go,” he says, voice a few degrees more stressed than it had been just a moment ago. “Someone just came in to tell me that BIRD got their goddamn databases hacked and now a list of all London Riders and dragons is floating around in cyberspace.”

“Don’t go home,” Bond says immediately. “Keep Marie with you and off the streets, whatever happens.”

“I will, Bond. Trust me, she’s not leaving my sight at any point over the next few days.”

Q sighs and Bond hears the clacking of computer keyboards begin to start up on Q’s end.

“I need to go,” Q says again. “Keep yourself safe as well, okay? The higher ups aren’t going to be happy if you end up flying back without your principal, against their orders at a time like this and not even Mallory is going to be able to help you then.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” comes the evasive reply. “And Q, before you go?”

“Hmm?”

Bond pauses in his pacing, suddenly feeling further away from London than he can ever remember feeling.

“For the record, I wish I was back there with you as well.”

 

* * *

 

**THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.**

**MARK WALSH, BBC ANCHOR:** And this is only one of many marches that are starting up all across the city after what happened in Camden earlier this morning. It's a very terse situation we're seeing here in London today, because dozens, almost hundreds in certain areas are taking to the streets in protest against the startling amount of deaths that have happened in the last twelve hours or so, the first being that of Rider Jonathan Chou.

 **HARRIET ROSS, BBC ANCHOR:** Mark, I'm going to have to interrupt you for a second because right now, we've just received new, live footage coming in from Camden. As you can watch from the video, the crowds are really starting to gather here, seeing that this is the site where the first non-Rider related death happened.

 **WALSH:** It's a very different scene from what we've been getting in from places like Croydon and Knightsbridge, isn't it?

 **ROSS:** Indeed it is. Camden is the heart of anti-Rider sentiments right now, especially after this morning. In the forefront of the crowd, you can see the signs that protestors are carrying, most of which are calling for a clampdown not only on dragons, but Riders as well.

On screen now we have our correspondent Rachel Hamilton, live on the ground at Camden. Rachel, can you hear me? First of all, tell our viewers exactly where you are and what's going on around you, what the atmosphere is like there.

 **RACHEL HAMILTON, BBC CORRESPONDENT:** Well, Harriet, right now I'm on the corner of York Way and Euston Road, and you can see Kings Cross Station right behind me. The crowd seems to have made the station their rallying point since this is where UCL student Jonathan Chou was shot and where his two year old Ironwing went rogue, killing fifteen people in the process, four of whom as we know now, were children.

 **WALSH:** I can see from the footage we're getting from you now that the protestors seem to be chanting something? Can you make out what it is, Rachel?

 **HAMILTON:** Yes, yes they are, and–…and they're saying…and I quote: We won't forget, we won't forgive, not until we're rid of this. Many of them are holding placards with pictures of Chou’s Greyling on them, but it’s understood that they’re calling for a dragon-free London.

This is coming straight on the heels of BIRD’s decision to call for an immediate evacuation of all Riders and dragons alike, the office of MP Rhys Hughes’ backing this by forcing the Staffordshire breeding grounds open three months ahead of schedule.

 **ROSS:** For viewers who require more information about Staffordshire, we urge you to contact BIRD directly on either one of the three hotline numbers that should be showing on up on the bottom of your screen right now.

 

* * *

 

Q has never seen anything quite like this happen in London, the scenes playing on the screens in front of him almost more suited to a distant country across the world instead of a few boroughs away. On the Met feed that Q is tapping into, new reports about a mob getting hold of a Jade yearling in Lambeth are just starting to filter in and Q looks away from the crime scene photos before it makes him sick.

Somehow, everything had come up to this. London, earlier filled to the brim with returned Riders, was now the rallying point for angry crowds, mobs calling for the deaths of dragons in retribution for the disaster that Camden had become.

Sixteen dead and nineteen injured, all in the space of less than an hour. Mobs descending on the homes of Riders. Maybe this was the plan all along, and they were just too short-sighted to see it coming.

“I don’t want to go,” Marie protests when Q tries to get her to leave with the MI5 couriers. “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

Under the surprising but not unwelcome direction of Rhys Hughes, the new grounds have been temporarily opened up for Riders seeking to leave the city and MI5 has been on escort duty the whole day, this being their last run for the evening before it gets too dark to fly.

If Marie doesn’t leave with them on this evac, Q doesn’t even know what he’s going to do next.

“Marie, sweetheart, you need to listen to me on this one, okay?” Q has knelt on the floor where Marie is curled, sulking in her refusal to go alone. “They need me at the branch right now and it’s not safe for you to be here.”

“But I’ll be good,” she insists, curling up even tighter when Q strokes her back. “I promise I’ll be good if you’ll just let me stay.”

“I know you can be good, and I know you’ll try your best if you stay here, but Marie, please, will you just listen to me?” The desperate note in Q’s voice has Marie uncurling herself a little, peeking out from under one wing to look at her Rider. “I’m telling you to leave not because I think you can’t be good, but because I know I can’t guarantee your safety if you stay here.” Q holds his hand out then and Marie lifts her head at it, pushing her nose into his palm to snuffle sadly.

“If I could have you here with me, I would,” he adds softly. “Believe me when I tell you that nothing makes me happier to have you around, but right now I’d rather know that you’ll be sleeping somewhere safe for the next few days, okay? If you leave with Madison and the rest, at least they can guarantee me that. I won’t be able to get you out of London so easily after tonight.”

When Marie still doesn’t answer him, Q lets his hand curl to rest under Marie’s chin, gently tilting it up from where her head had been drooping so that she can meet him eye to eye.

“I’ll come for you the moment I can,” Q says, voice strained. “I promise, I won’t leave you alone there.”

“Promise?” Marie’s voice is wavering, eyes blinking wetly. “You really promise?”

Q bends down to press his forehead against Marie’s, hands coming to rest on either side of her head as she closes her eyes, whining softly.

“Promise,” he whispers.

 

* * *

 

Bond is still keeping watch outside Marianne’s hotel room when the sound of her door opening has him looking over.

“Ma’am?” he asks, politely curious. “Is something wrong?”

Marianne looks agitated, the lines in her face more pronounced now that the makeup she had been wearing from the reception has been washed away. There’s a deep crease between her eyebrows as she frowns.

“They’ve blocked my charter,” she says in a strained voice. “Home Office. They’re not letting me go back.”

Bond lets a bit of his own dissatisfaction slip into his voice when he replies. “I’ve heard the same from my own people, ma’am. Most, if not all London based Riders who are overseas now have been told not to re-enter the city.”

This doesn’t do anything to help with the Minister’s distress and Marianne stands in the doorway for a while, jaw ticking before something seems to shift in her.

“Come in,” she says to Bond as she stands aside. “I’m going to ask you to do something very stupid for me in a few seconds, and I’d rather not do it standing out here in the open.”

Marianne’s room is painfully neat when Bond walks into it, Marianne gesturing that Bond should sit wherever he likes.

“I’m flying back to London on my own with Cassius,” she says once Bond has picked a television cabinet to lean against, Marianne having sat herself down on the edge of her bed with her hands folded tightly in front of her. “It’s less than a two hour flight from here to London and I can’t just keep waiting here, knowing that BIRD has just issued a citywide evac.”

She pauses to watch for Bond’s reaction and finding none, sits a little straighter.

“I’m letting you know ahead of time because I don’t want you to report my leaving back to Home Office or MI6 before I’ve crossed the Channel. They’ll revoke my papers if you do, and I can’t afford to not be in London, not tonight.”

Marianne stands now that the hardest part of what she has to say has already been said.

“I know what I’m asking you to do is going directly against the orders you have–,” she continues on and her voice is almost pleading, hands clenched loosely at her sides, “–but if they come down on you for this, I’ll take the blame, I swear. I know you said you don’t have family in London, James, but you must know what it’s like to worry about the people you care about.”

“I do,” Bond says quietly. “Which is why I’m going to ask you for one favour before you leave.”

“Name it,” Marianne says immediately. Her posture is straight in a way that only comes with years of being a Rider. “I’ll do what I can.

“Let me come with you.”

 

* * *

 

Madison has been heading MI5’s aviation department for seven years now and her grip is callused when she shakes Q’s hand.

“Wish we could have met under better circumstances, to be honest,” she says in a sincere tone. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about what you’ve been doing at this branch of yours over here, and I have to say, the mic patches you’ve been working on for solo flying?” The smile she gives Q is thankful. “Invaluable. We’ve been using them all day during the evacs.”

Q nods his thanks, unsure of what to do with praise at such a time. “Good to know it managed to help during the evacs, at least,” he finally says. “I outfitted Marie with one myself, not half an hour ago. And thank you, by the way, for dropping by on such short notice. I know your team has been working on a tight schedule today and you’re already stretched pretty thin as it is.”

Madison shakes her head, bob cut bouncing a little as she does.

“Don’t mention it. It’s the least we can do for everyone at the moment, given the shitstorm we’re in. Did you hear about what they did to that yearling in Lambeth?” A look of disgusted anger twists her face as she speaks. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? The things we can do to each other when pushed.”

“Mob psychology works in terrible ways,” Q says and Madison grunts her assent.

“Now isn’t that the goddamn truth.”

A ways off, Marie is talking with Madison’s dragon, a cheerful looking Pascal’s Blue named Eli who’s letting Marie ply him with questions about the grounds at Staffordshire.

“Young one, isn’t she?” When Q’s attention snaps back to Madison, the latter has an almost kind look on her face. “That Marie of yours.”

“She’s only turning three in the middle of next year,” Q says in reply, a little softer than he had meant to and Madison makes a knowing sound, turning back towards their dragons.

“Eli is almost as old as I am,” she offers in return. “Been flying with him since I could walk, so don’t worry. She’ll be in good hands.”

“Didn’t doubt that for a second.”

A low whistle from Madison has Eli swinging his head over at them, turning to say something to Marie before they walk over together, Marie considerably less nervous than she had been before.

“Ready to get into the air again?” Madison asks the moment Eli is within talking distance. This close, Q can see the slight dappling of grey in the other dragon’s mostly sky blue scales, Marie’s fiery red a stark contrast against him. “We’re going to have to rush a little, if we want to get to Staffordshire before sundown.”

“No problem,” rumbles Eli, his voice gravelly. “I’ve been talking to Marie and she’s fine with a slightly faster flight time.”

Sometime during the conversation, Marie has removed herself from Eli’s side to go twine around Q’s legs and when Q looks down at her, Marie’s tail is wound loosely around one of his ankles.

“Are you ready to leave?” he asks her gently. Marie turns wide eyes to him.

“Maybe,” she says hesitantly. “Eli says that Staffordshire isn’t too bad, and it’s far away enough from London that no one is going to try and hurt us there.”

“That’s right,” Q says. Seeing Marie like this, Madison has backed off to give them some time alone, going off with Eli to a nearby corner to do her pre-flight checks. “Madison has been making trips there the whole day today, so she knows it’s very safe. Listen to whatever she and Eli tells you on the way, okay? They’ll be looking after you until I get there later tonight or early tomorrow morning, so you be good for them.”

“I will,” mumbles Marie and she lifts her neck a bit to scratch at the throat patch there, worrying at it until Q kneels down to readjust it for her, fixing the small patch near her ear as well while he’s at it. “I’ll be able to talk to you during the whole time, right?”

“Right. Just remember not to ignore Madison and Eli on the way, they’ll probably want to ask you about how it’s like being in MI6.”

At this, Marie brightens a little, the prospect of finally being able to share such information with other people beyond Bond and Niall enough to lighten her mood.

“Really?” she asks and her tail unwinds a little from Q’s ankle. “I can tell them?”

“They’re MI5, and on the same security clearance level as us to boot, so whatever you tell them, they’re allowed to know.”

This earns Q his entire ankle back and he smiles, stroking Marie once on the head before he gets up again.

“Off you go now,” he tells her, herding Marie towards Eli and Madison. “I’ll turn the comm on in about two hours, just before or right after you reach the grounds.”

“Remember to come and get me, okay?” says Marie in a small voice, sticking close to Q for a short while longer.

“I’ll remember,” Q replies back, voice warm. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there before you know it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: The frankly quite horrendous looking graphic you see in this chapter here was actually put together by yours (man idek either okay this is why you don't write your fic 1 day with the posting dateline) truly while thislostcastaway did the amazing Order of St. George logo in the bottom left, which is why only that corner looks really, really spiffy. 
> 
> Apologies. I won't try it again.


	5. Chapter 5

_And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years._   
**Revelation 20:2**

**part five**

“Fuck this,” mutters Q under his breath as he scrolls through the social media ticker at the side of his screen, an alert having been set up to monitor any mention of anti-dragon sentiments posted within the Greater London area. So far, they’ve managed to stop at least four break-ins in time through this, Q liaising with the Met and MI5 to provide the technological backup that they need.

It’s been nine hours since the fiasco at Camden, two since Marie has left and Q can’t help but feel her absence with a stabbing sort of awareness that doesn’t go away, not even when he’s half buried under a pile of work that never seems to stop.

Madison, bless her, at least has agreed to text Q the moment they arrived in Staffordshire, and Q watches his mobile with a hope that’s almost crushing in its intensity.

“Has there been anything developing beyond the usual?”

Q turns around at the sound of Mallory’s voice, standing from his desk as he does.

“No, sir,” he says. “Nothing to report so far. It’s only the usual postings, but no one has tried anything drastic in the past few hours or so.”

“Good.” Mallory waves for Q to sit back down and Q does, watching Mallory’s gaze drift over his desk as he does. Almost automatically, Mallory’s eyes have come to rest on a print-out of an anti-dragon flyer that has apparently been circulating through the streets.

“You’ve sent your dragon ahead to the grounds at Staffordshire, I presume?” he asks when he looks up from where he had been studying the simple black and red print, the Order’s logo stamped clearly in one corner.

“Aviation from MI5 brought her along two hours ago, sir. They should probably be arriving sometime about now.”

“You should go join that dragon of yours when you can.”

It’s the first time that Mallory is speaking directly to Q about Marie and when Q takes a longer look at his superior, he’s not surprised to find Mallory’s shoulders stiff with the effort.

“I will sir, the moment I’m done here. Thank you for the offer.”

Mallory nods, sharp. “Make it soon, Q. We can get non-Riders to cover for you when you leave and I don’t like the idea of that dragon of yours alone out there.”

 

* * *

 

Mallory has been gone barely fifteen minutes when Q’s mobile starts to buzz next to him, Q pouncing on it almost instantaneously.

“Bond?”

The phone call is unexpected, but not unwelcome, Bond’s voice distant over the sound of what seems to be wind rushing past.

“Q,” he says, needing to raise his voice a little. “I need you to check something for me. Can you access any of the street cameras near Belgravia? I need visual Lyall Street and surrounding areas.”

“Bond, what on earth are you…” Q trails off, hands pausing over his keyboard even as traffic cameras from Belgravia are starting to fill up one of his screens. “Are you flying back from Calais?” he asks, disbelieving. “Bond, there’s a _reason_ why you’re supposed to stay put in France and not come back until it’s clear.”

“And that reason is flying right beside me now, so you can’t blame me for not following orders.” Bond stops to call something to Niall and the sound of wind lessens a little, Bond probably getting Niall to slow his speed down so he can talk without having to shout. “I’m already almost at London and I have Marianne with me, so I need stats on those visuals now, Q.”

“Hold on,” Q mumbles as he clicks through the camera feeds, choosing not to think too hard about Bond disregarding head office instructions yet again, this time with a minister in tow. “It’s getting dark so I’m not going to be able to give you a complete 360 degree view.”

“Doesn’t matter, I just need to know it’s safe enough to land without someone trying to shoot us out of the air.”

“Lyall is clear enough, but you might want to give the area around Belgrave Square a miss if you can.”

This has Bond shouting Q’s information at someone whose identity Q doesn’t need to guess, Marianne’s reply too faraway to hear properly.

“I’ll be in the city soon, half an hour, tops,” Bond says when he comes back to the line. “We’re moving on Staffordshire after Marianne has picked some essentials up so if you want me to bring Marie along with me, now will be the time to go get her ready.”

“She’s already left with MI5.”

Bond makes a surprised sound at this and Q can hear him quickly relating this to Niall, Niall’s grunt of acknowledgement just faint enough to pick up on.

“Who did you send her off with? Madison?”

“Madison and Eli,” Q clarifies. “They were doing evacs out of the city so I had Marie hitch a ride with them on their last run. Madison is supposed to text me when they reach.”

“Good, I’ll keep a lookout for her when I get there, then.”

Bond pauses and for a while, Q hears nothing but the ocean-like sound of the wind whistling past.

“Do you want me to drop by HQ when I get into the city?” Bond asks after a long moment. “I know you don’t like to fly, but Niall can take one more Rider on the way, easy. Get you to Marie tonight instead of you going up there by yourself in the morning.”

Q has to consider this for a moment and he leans back into his chair to do so. It’s a tempting offer, if any, but the workload here, coupled with Q’s immense fear of flying makes it an impossible one to accept, Q finally shaking his head.

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “I’ve already told Marie I’ll either be there tonight or tomorrow, so she knows not to expect me.”

“Alright then.” A word to Niall has the sound of the wind picking back up again, Bond’s voice crackling as Niall climbs higher. “I’ll see you in Staffordshire.”

“Fly safe, Bond.”

 

* * *

 

When Madison still hasn’t texted their location to Q by eight that night, Q tries calling her, only to have the number ring out, again and again. It shouldn’t be a cause for worry since Q knows it’s near impossible to hear a mobile when mid-flight, but it’s almost half an hour beyond their intended arrival time, and Madison doesn’t seem like the kind who will delay without proper cause.

He had been planning to only switch Marie’s comm system on when he had direct confirmation from Madison that they were already on the ground since unnecessary wind interference didn’t do the throat patches any good, but after five calls unanswered, Q damns it all to hell.

“Marie?” he asks quietly in testing. “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

There’s no answer. Heart in his throat, Q rechecks the connection, something in him growing very cold when everything seems to be up and working perfectly.

“Marie?”

The crackle of wind he had been expecting to hear doesn’t come through either, and when Q turns the volume up, there’s nothing but the sound of distant voices, some of them raised in apparent argument.

“For it is written,” one voice is saying, louder than the rest and too familiar to be real. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of god is eternal life. The fact that they lived pure and holy lives up to this point means are alive still and sitting at the right hand of the most high, just not as you understand.”

“That didn’t mean you had to _murder_ them!” another voice shouts.

“Don’t you understand? They needed to present themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. They were the best living among the worst and the fact that you still hold such doubt in your heart shows that you have faltered far from the way.”

Q rears away from his speakers before he can listen any further, a terror so sudden in his chest that it takes him two tries to get Mallory’s direct line right.

“Q?” Mallory asks just as the first gunshot rings out. “Did something happen?”

Q doesn’t know how to breathe anymore but the words come out all the same.

“We got it wrong, sir,” he says and Q’s voice sounds like a stranger’s, even to himself. “London isn’t the endgame. It’s Staffordshire.”

 

* * *

 

**THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.**

**HARRIET ROSS, BBC ANCHOR:** This is an emergency announcement coming from BIRD and the Metropolitan Police, retracting previous evacuation orders for Riders and dragons to assemble at Staffordshire Breeding Grounds.

Riders and dragons who intend to leave for Staffordshire, or are already on the way, are advised to cancel plans immediately and relocate to another location as Staffordshire has been declared an unsafe location.

I repeat, Staffordshire has been declared an unsafe location and should not be approached in any way by the public.

 

* * *

 

London is in a lockdown, Bond guarding the street with Niall outside Marianne’s home with watchful eyes when his mobile starts to buzz in his pocket.

“Bond, are you still in the air?” Q’s voice is frantic for once and Bond feels a sickening roil of disquiet in his gut at the unfamiliar sound, Niall looking over as if able to sense it too.

“I’m not,” he confirms. “What’s wrong, Q? Is there something–”

“No time,” Q cuts in quickly. “I can’t explain everything right now, but whatever you do, don’t bring Marianne to Staffordshire, okay? Don’t even go near that place.”

“But BIRD just ordered all of us there as an evac location, why the sudden withdrawal?”

“I don’t know what I heard, exactly, but–…” Q’s voice stumbles over what Bond thinks could be a shaky breath. “They’re already dispatching teams there now, so…”

“Q.” The name comes out as sharp as Bond intends it to and it seems to jolt Q back to the present, Q exhaling slowly even as Bond gestures at Niall to go get Marianne. “Q, listen to me very carefully. Stay on the phone and meet me out at the courtyard in five minutes, okay? Can you do that?”

“I…” The momentary uncertainly in Q’s voice is unlike anything Bond has ever heard before. “Okay. Okay, I’ll do that.”

“Good,” says Bond encouragingly. Niall is up in the air before Bond can even settle in the saddle, Cassius and Marianne close behind. “Now all you have to do is just keep talking, Q. I’ll be there soon.”

 

* * *

 

By the time Niall lands in the floodlighted courtyard of MI6, Bond has a rough idea of what to expect when he disembarks, Q already making for them before Niall has even touched the ground.

“She’s not answering me,” Q is saying, his voice hollow as the hand holding his mobile falls away and he can speak face to face with Bond instead. In the harsh whiteness of the light, Q looks barely put together, panic and sheer desperation the only thing keeping his back straight. “I keep trying to get her to, but she just won’t answer.”

“Q,” Bond says gently and that’s all it takes for Q to crack, the rigid line of his shoulders crumbling slowly as his hands start to shake by his sides. “We’re going to get her back, okay?”

Q’s hands are still trembling when Bond reaches for them, pulling Q up into the saddle in front of him.

“Everything is going to be alright.”

 

* * *

 

By right, the trip to Staffordshire should take almost a hundred and forty miles. More than two hours, if you get there by car

On dragon back, they reach it in less than one.

 

* * *

 

Q knows the ways to cope with fear like the back of his hand, can even recite the four part program backwards if he wants to.

 

Part one: Know your fears

(Flight and death and a plummeting downwards that Q cannot avoid, a gaping hole in his side that refuses to be filled. An empty apartment. A promise, unkept. A falling without an end.)

 

Part two: Know the source of your fears

(Muscle memory. The world turning on itself, ground to sky and grass to cloud, the white flash of bone in sharp relief against a childhood that’s tinted red. Loneliness, growing like a cancer inside his chest.)

 

Part three: Step into the things you fear

(Night wind tearing at Q’s clothes in the dark. Hands, pulling him back and Q is okay for now, safe here. London lies far behind. This is a dream, and it’s blurring at the edges.)

 

There’s a fourth part as well, but Bond’s arms are tight around Q’s waist, voice low and comforting against the shell of Q’s ear, and Q finds that somehow, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t remember what comes next.

Finds that it doesn’t really matter anymore, anyways.

 

* * *

 

Niall sets them down just shy of the breeding grounds, sides heaving with exertion when he crouches down as low as he can in the grass so that Bond can pull Q off with him in one fluid motion.

“Okay?” Bond asks and Q nods, the ground feeling strangely solid under his feet. If he closes his eyes for too long, Q thinks that the feeling might suddenly change.

“Okay,” murmurs Q in return. “I’m fine. Go and see if Niall is alright.”

Bond presses the butt of a gun into Q’s hands then and the weight is an anchor that Q holds onto as he waits, Bond speaking quietly to Niall who can only nod tiredly by now, lying on the grass with his breath misting in the cold.

“Go,” Niall is saying between pants. “I’ll be fine, just go and find her.”

The moor is dark to pick their way across but Bond takes them through with the confidence of one who has grown up running on the wild hillsides and grassy flats, Q following exactly in Bond’s footsteps without a single sound. In the shortening distance, the bright dome of the breeding grounds looms like a beacon in the night.

“They won’t be able to make it here in time,” Bond mutters, low and vicious under his breath. Around them, the plains are still empty, no sign of the reinforcements that they had been hoping to find. “Not with their flight time and not with these roads at night.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Q says in return and finds that he means every word. There’s no explanation that he can easily give for this, nothing beyond the sound of his pulse beating rabbit-fast in his ears and the terrible knowing that he can’t turn back, not now. “I don’t care, I’m going to find her.”

Bond’s face is unreadable in the dark, but that doesn’t matter when Q can feel the warmth of Bond’s hand pressed against his cheek, this one, quick moment of closeness chased with a press of his lips against Q’s.

“We’ll find her,” Bond promises and Q follows after him into the dark, believing.

 

* * *

 

There are two men posted by the entrance to the grounds and Q doesn’t look away when Bond shoots them with a silenced gun, one in the head and the other in the neck when he tries to dodge.

“Jacket,” Bond hisses at Q and Q shrugs it off without a word, bunching it together so that Bond can hold it over the mouth of the dying man, gurgling screams swallowed by the thick cotton. In any other situation, Bond would have just shot the man again to shut him up, but without really knowing how many people are waiting for them inside, Bond doesn’t want to take the chance.

By the time the man has bled out, Q’s jacket is soaked all through the inside and Q can feel an almost hysterical laugh trying to make itself out of his throat.

“It was a present from my sister,” he tells Bond and Bond’s hands are slicked red. “I hated it, but I wore anyways, and it just became a habit.”

“I’ll buy you a new one when we get back,” Bond says as he wipes his hands on the grass.

 

* * *

 

The Staffordshire grounds are built like any other: circular in shape and hollowed out in the middle, a low, modern day coliseum meant to house at least sixty dragons at any given time of the year. By Bond’s estimations, there could be many more than that here tonight, BIRD and MI5’s evac having been scarily efficient at the worst time possible.

Bond leads them carefully down deserted corridors, following the sound of voices made to carry far whenever the domed roof of the grounds is closed.

“And do you repent of your sins?” a loud, clear voice is saying as they quietly climb the stairs to the first floor. “As we were purchased in blood, you will be redeemed again through it.”

The upper dragon pens are empty when Bond and Q creep past them, following the curved walkway that snakes around the circumference of the grounds.

“Fuck you, you crazy bitch,” a woman’s voice rings out from below and when they peer over the low wall that separates the walkway from empty air, Q can’t help but feel bile rise in the back of his throat.

On the ground of the main enclosure lies the still bodies of almost fifty dragons, Bond drawing in a sharp breath next to Q when he sees it too.

“No,” Q whispers hoarsely to himself as he blindly searches for the smallest patch of red amongst the myriad of colours and next to him, Bond has gone dangerously still “No, no, not like this, Marie–“

He cuts off when Bond clamps a hand over his mouth, Q fighting for a brief second before he goes limp, looking over his shoulder at Bond who slowly releases him, shaking his head. Not here. Not now.

“There’s no condemnation here,” Deanna continues to say calmly as she stands before a huddle of bound and kneeling Riders in the middle of the enclosure, the number of Riders far too few when compared to the dragons. “We forgive because we were first forgiven so I’m going to ask you again: are you willing to repent of your sins and redeem yourself through blood?”

The woman she had been addressing spits at her feet and Deanna only shakes her head sadly, turning to one of the many armed, black hooded figures who flank her.

“Take her out to the back with the rest,” she tells it. “The kingdom is closed to sinners like her.”

The woman is dragged away at gunpoint after that, fighting and screaming all the way.

 

* * *

 

There is, at the exact same moment, too much and too little time left.

Bond hurriedly does a headcount of those armed while Deanna turns to a man next, a middle aged, bespectacled one who shivers under her scrutiny.

“Do you confess to having fallen short of and sinned against the word?” she asks him and whatever he stammers at her seems to be the right answer, Deanna smiling down at him with compassion. At her signal, another hooded figure has stepped forward, passing her a knife that Bond tracks with narrowed eyes.

“Do you also believe in the redeeming power of blood?” comes the next question and the man nods, enthusiastically. Next to Bond, Q has wrapped his hand tightly around the grip of his gun.

“Then you are forgiven.” Deanna cuts the bonds off the man herself and she leads them towards one of the dragons, a beautifully coloured Jade she makes the man kneel next to. Behind him, one of the hooded figures has pressed a gun against his head.

“Do this with a thankful heart and you will welcomed into the kingdom,” she says serenely and the man drops the knife handed to him twice before he can hold it steady enough to plunge through the eye-socket of the Jade, drawing it back in slow horror just as Bond fires the first shot and Niall crashes through the glass dome of the roof.

 

* * *

 

Watching a dragon in combat is unlike anything else that Q has ever seen.

While Bond fires on the running figures, Niall rips through the hoods of those that Bond misses, gunfire mixed with roars when his claws and fangs come away bloody. Q feels a strange calm though, amidst the chaos. It’s almost just like being in a dream and the screams of the unhooded man that Niall has between his jaws are coming from somewhere far away when Q seeks Deanna out.

He finds her standing off to the side, impassive in the face of the carnage that surrounds her.

“Bitch,” Q snarls as he lines her up in his sights and she goes down easy, Q’s entire magazine emptied out in her chest.

 

* * *

 

Glass is still falling from the ceiling when Q runs towards where he thinks he had seen Marie from the first floor, Q’s hands bloody by the time he has made his way around the slowly stirring bodies of other dragons.

“Marie?” he finds himself calling out, desperate, and she’s lying so, so still when Q kneels next to her. “Marie, sweetheart, I’m here. I’m finally here.”

Marie doesn’t move though, not even when Q presses his hand against side of her cheek and the unnatural coldness of her scales there makes Q think he’s on the verge on a scream.

“Marie,” he tries again, still trying to understand, and it’s Bond who finally pulls him away to let the medics lift her limp body off the ground, Q struggling weakly against arms that somehow won’t let him go to her.

“She’s going to be okay,” Bond is saying. “She’s going to be fine if they get her to proper medical care in time.”

On some level, Q knows a part of him should understand this. Some sane and rational part of himself probably trying to quietly explain to the rest of him that it’s just an overloading of chemicals in her system, the drugs too much for such a small body to handle.

The heart will never understand the way the mind does though, so Q still thrashes against Bond. Still calls out for his dragon and can’t stop thinking of the way her body had been unmoving when he had reached, far too late.

“Q, it’s okay. We got to her in time.”

Q doesn’t even notice that he had been saying it aloud, but the fight starts goes out of him when Bond repeats it again and again, the words a steady lifeline against his ear.

“It’s okay,” he says. “We got to her in time.”

 

* * *

 

**Body of MP Rhys Hughes Found**

**BIRMINGHAM, England–**  
Birmingham police have confirmed initial reports that the decomposed body found by the M6 late Sunday night is indeed that of missing National Action Party MP Rhys Hughes. Hughes was reported missing by his family during the London riots of September 17, but searches conducted by local police proved inconclusive.

While preliminary investigations initially linked Hughes to the events of Staffordshire (see pg12 for interview with survivor Noridah Akmal), Ministry of Defense officials have since clarified that Hughes is now believed to be yet another victim of religious extremist Deanna Trần.

Trần, notorious for orchestrating the deaths of multiple dragons and Riders, had been working as Hughes’ political aide at the time of the Staffordshire events. This has led to speculation that– (pg 2 for full report)

 

* * *

 

 

“We should have seen the connection,” Q says as he folds the newspaper away. His hands are still bandaged from the night at Staffordshire, which makes touch screens difficult for the time being. “If we had looked a bit deeper into Hughes’, maybe–“

“Maybe what, track the movements of his entire entourage without cause or reason? Maybe check into the personal and psychiatric history of all his personal and professional connections?” Bond sighs and looks critically over the table at Q who just presses his mouth into a thin line, idly moving his food around his plate. “Q, you can’t blame yourself for things that were beyond your control.”

When Q still doesn’t reply, Bond uses his foot to nudge Q’s under the table, unheeding of the rest of the people who share the hospital cafeteria with them

“Look at it this way,” he says now that he has Q’s attention and probably that of the neighbouring table as well. “If we had spent the time going through every single link of every single suspect on our lists during the investigations, we wouldn’t even have gotten beyond the first five names. And _don’t_ –“ Bond uses his fork to point accusingly at Q, “–even try to tell me that things would have been different if Hughes’ name was third on the list or something like that, okay?”

Q is silent for a while, still chasing a cherry tomato around the rim of his plate when Bond feels a slight nudge against his ankle.

“Okay,” Q finally says and Bond finds his foot trapped loosely between two of Q’s, Q smiling a little tiredly at Bond. “I won’t.”

 

* * *

 

Q is working quietly on the floor next to Marie’s pallet when Bond steps into the room, Q looking up with a tired smile that breaks into an actual, full-fledged grin the moment he sees the paper bags of food and thermos that Bond has come bearing.

“I know they’ve already given you honorary captainship and a KCM for Staffordshire, but can I nominate you sainthood?” he asks seriously as he moves over a little to make room for Bond.

Bond just laughs and hands Q his food, setting the thermos down by where Q’s laptop is humming.

“Besides you needing to be the Pope for it to happen, the fact that I–“ Bond snakes his hand around Q’s waist, tugging him close to place a small kiss on the side of Q’s cheek, “–still rather enjoying doing things like that means I’m probably not even allowed into the Vatican to begin with.”

“I’ve been to the Vatican before,” Q muses as he slips away from Bond to poke around in the food bags. There’s a faint blush to his cheeks that Bond thinks he’ll never get tired of seeing. “They let me in.”

“That’s before you met me.”

“Your assumption that I lived a pure, monastic life before you barged into my existence is one that constantly baffles me, Bond, it really does.”

“Wait, you mean my father traded all those cows for a non-virgin? And a _man_ to boot?”

Q hits Bond in the arm and because Q isn’t a cold, cold bastard, he aims it just shy of where the bandages for Bond’s bullet graze are, Bond biting back a yelp lest he wake Marie.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like the man parts,” Q says smoothly as he turns back to unpacking his food. “Also, if you even try thinking about telling me I hit like a woman, I won’t bother to miss next time.”

“Remind me again, why I like you? Besides the man parts, of course.” Still rubbing at his arm, Bond leans across Q to reach for a spare fork when Q casually hooks his fingers into the collar of Bond’s shirt, pulling Bond forwards towards him so Q can place a long kiss on Bonds mouth.

“Because I like you back,” Q says, simply. He lets go of Bond then, grinning a little. “Now go get your fork and eat, the food is getting cold.”

 

* * *

 

Marie cracks an eye open the moment Bond and Q have left with the remains of their lunch, peering around to see if the coast is clear before she hops off the pallet to go scratch at the window of the hospital room. At her signal, Niall’s head bobs up and he presses his nose to the glass, drawing away after that so Marie can work a claw against the latch.

“Did you hear all of that?” Marie says excitedly when she has manages to get the window open. Niall uses his nose to push it out all the way and Marie climbs onto the ledge. “Did you?”

“I’ve heard more than enough, actually.”

From her perch, Marie takes a long look at the leaves still on the trees outside her window and mulls this over, Niall resting his chin on the side as he waits.

“This means that neither of us won, though, since it’s not even October yet,” she finally concludes. October usually means less leaves than this. “But that’s okay, I think I’d rather they did this sooner than later.”

With a sigh, Marie glances over her shoulder at Q’s laptop still charging in the socket next to her pallet.

“I just wish I was back home to hear everything instead of being stuck here for the doctors to observe. They must say so and do so much more than this when they’re at home.”

“I’m not sure you really want to be around for any of _that_ at the moment,” Niall says darkly.

“But never mind that,” he quickly adds before Marie can ask him anything further and Niall nudges at Marie for her to spread her wings, still a bit shaky but steadying out day by day.

“Come on,” urges Niall. “I’ll take you flying and we can count it as your win anyways, since late September is close enough to October.”

“Really?” Marie lets out a happy crow, already crouched for a leap.

“Really.”

Niall moves away from the window then and Marie takes off after him, wheeling away in the crisp autumn air.

 

_Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; though thou hast sort broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death._   
**Psalms 44:18-19**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow okay, so that's over :D 
> 
> The idea for this fic actually started almost a year ago while I was in a cab, listening to Young Blood (Renholder Remix) by The Naked and The Famous and thinking to myself _Well damn wouldn't this be a great song to fly some dragons to?_ so uhm yes that's also where the fic title is from? Huzzah, convenience! 
> 
> Also, before you go, thank you so, so much for making it up to here & I really hope that wasn't too bad to get through <3 Bless. Churning this out in time for 00QBB (wow big shoutout to my tlist by the way, for not unfollowing me during the whole writing period) was a huge, crazy, expletive-filled ride so...can someone tell me to think things through before I write something this long again? 
> 
> Aw yiss, dragons.
> 
> P.S. – Any and all mistakes you might have come across throughout the fic are entirely my own, so please do let me know about anything that's wrong down in the comments~


End file.
